Amelie's Secret
by SecretSymphony301
Summary: Amelie, Morganville Founder, has finally created a town in which vampires and humans can interact freely. Not only has she done this, but she has earned the trust of many of the Morganville citizens. Although, nobody has thought to ask about Amelie's past in all the time that she has been the queen of Morganville. What will Claire discover when a tragic event occurs in Morganville?
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1 – Just When We Thought Life Was Back To Normal**

**Claire's POV**

"Me, I, he, him, boy, fabulous, vain?" I ventured.

"What are you trying to say?" Shane asked, putting on his best fake hurt expression, holding his hand to his chest.

"If you're trying to clutch your heart, you might want to move your hand over a bit to the left."

"I cut meat at a restaurant; do you think I care where my heart is?"

"Just keep going, I want to get it. So it's a movie, two words... And I don't have a clue after that."

Shane pointed toward himself, followed by a dramatic gesture down his body. The more actions he did, the more confused I got.

"I don't know, do something else!"

"Fine." He brought his hand to the space two inches above his head and looked up as if he was afraid.

"Tall? Yes, tall!"

After he made a 'close...' gesture, I knew what the first word was.

"Big! It's big!" I was shouting now, but I didn't care.

"Yes!" He applauded; clearly proud of himself, though it should have been me that was proud.

"What do _you_ have anything to do with 'big'?" A few years ago I would have considered Shane as terrifyingly tall, but now that I had grown a few inches in the past two years, I was starting to get used to his height – now it was just average.

"Just a second, you'll understand." He held up two fingers.

"Second word. Big...em, big baby?" His arms were positioned as if he was cradling a newly born baby. Nodding, he then pointed toward himself, then back to cradling the baby, then pointing, then cradling, then...

"Father, dad, daddy! Big Daddy!" For the first few seconds I was quite satisfied with myself, until I realised what he had meant at the very beginning. I crossed my arms. "Big Daddy, really?"

His face lightened up with a mischievous smile. I just shook my head and looked at him with the most serious and disapproving face I could muster.

He walked toward me, placing a kiss on my cheek when he reached me. Taking my left hand in his right, he pulled me up off the sofa. I could still feel the weight of the ring that perched on my finger. It was a comforting souvenir whenever I was worried about something, which wasn't very often anymore. Things were running smoothly, and life with the vampires had never been better.

"That's a lovely ring you have on your finger, Madame," Shane began in his terrible English accent. "Tell me, who could possibly be so thoughtful, considerate and have such a striking taste in accessories? You must be the luckiest woman in the world."

"Hmm. How I managed to fall in love with that terrible English accent and a guy so vain is beyond me. Anyway, it's my turn. And I think it's a very good choice." I flashed a huge, toothy smile and took the stage.

"Movie," Shane said as I made the filming gesture. "Two words," he continued when I held up two of my fingers.

After holding up two fingers, I began doing the motion that Shane had been doing in his turn.

"Small?" This earned him a devil stare, but we both knew that there was a smile shining behind my eyes.

Pointing to myself, I produced a beautiful smile.

Shane stood up and strode toward me, and my face clouded with bewilderment. Before I could speak, Shane took me in his arms and rested his head against mine. Instinctively, my head leaned on his shoulder.

In my ear he murmured, "Pretty Woman, the one and only."

When I smiled, I could feel his smile spread as well. Shane pulled away slightly so that our faces were inches apart. Looking directly into my eyes, he told me, "Claire Danvers, the one and only Pretty Woman in my life. Apart from Eve of course, because if I don't say that then she'll get mad at me," and he was serious when he said it, which made me giggle. And when I giggled, Shane smiled. "Every melody that leaves your mouth, I love. Every kiss that you grant me, I crave. Every day that I wake up with you lying by my side, no matter how dishevelled or unusual you appear, I wonder how I could be so lucky to love you. How I could be so lucky to have married you. How I could be so lucky to call you mine. I love you, Claire Danvers Collins. And I always will."

I stood there in his arms, feeling his hand caress my cheek. I was speechless, breathless, and so shocked that my first reaction was to kiss him. And I did.

Then, finally, when we parted, even more breathless than before, Shane exhaled a long, wonderful sigh. "So you liked it?"

I stared at him as if he were crazy, which was then exactly what I thought. "Are you _crazy_? It was amazing, and extremely cheesy which just made it all the better."

His sigh this time sounded tremendously relieved. "Thank God. I've been working on it for days, I eventually got that and I knew that it was perfect because I meant every word."

"Wait a second," I began, "You've been working on it for _days_? That doesn't sound like you."

"Well..."

"What's going on?" And I could see in his eyes that he wanted to tell me, but for some reason he didn't at the same time.

"What happened to '_be careful what you say_'?" He muttered to himself. Then he looked up, and I saw the defeat in his eyes. "I'd sort of arranged a honeymoon thing, you know, since we never did anything after the wedding."

"What about Amelie and Oliver? Do they know?" They wouldn't allow someone to leave Morganville for something as insignificant as a honeymoon.

"Actually, they suggested it. So they're all for it, we have consent and everything – and I still find it ridiculous that we need to get their _consent _to do something, it's pathetic." After he realised that he had gotten off the topic of conversation, he looked at me and asked, "Yes?"

"Where would we be going?"

"That part has to stay a surprise, or it would totally spoil it."

"I guess I can live with that," I smiled, kissing him on the cheek. Then we sat back on the sofa, bickering about movies and vanity – Claire's ear on Shane's shoulder.

Four minutes later, the door slammed open, followed by a loud, "I'm home! I thought I would be generous and decided to bring food! And I hope you didn't miss me _too _much while I was away." It was Eve, the happiness and glee taking away any sign of Goth.

"We've been filling up our misery with a very terrible game of charades," I shouted back.

"I feel so sorry for you, but this will cheer you up!" Eve appeared in the living room, running toward the centre of the room. "Auw," she cocooned, leaning her head to the right. "You two love birds are _so _cute, you know that?" She held hand to her heart and smiled an incredibly merry smile.

"That, Shane is how to properly hold your hand to your heart," I noted, pointing towards Eve and her correct positioning of the heart.

"Forget where the heart was again?" Eve mocked.

"Biology isn't exactly my strong point. And anyway, I cut meat in a restaurant..." Shane started.

"Do you think I care where my heart is?" Eve and I both recited with fake low voices and scrunched up faces.

"That, ladies, could hurt a man's feelings," he lectured.

"That, ladies..."

"Okay! Okay!" After a dramatic sigh, he said, "What was the thing you wanted to tell us." It was useless though, because Eve and I were both bent over laughing, our faces like tomatoes. "Women," Shane muttered, and began to stand up, when the door banged open yet again and a rushing Michael entered the living room – stopping when he saw the current situation.

"Um, guys, I hate to interrupt the fun, but we've got a problem."

Everybody's attention was on Michael, the way it would have been if he had his guitar and was sitting on the stage of Common Grounds.

"Amelie's been kidnapped."


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2 – Amelie's Been Kidnapped**

"No, no, no, no, no, no. Amelie can't have been kidnapped she's... Well, she's _Amelie!"_ Eve chattered, clearly agitated.

"Exactly, Amelie can't have been kidnapped; rumours these days, more terrible by the second," Shane stated. He wasn't agitated so much as in denial.

"Michael wouldn't have just picked up a rumour on the street. He would have made sure that it was true, and then come here; just like he did," I said matter-of-factly. "Michael?"

"I didn't exactly check, but Hannah told me. She knows better than everyone what's going on with the Vampires."

"Okay," Shane started, "So it's definitely not a lie. But what the hell? Amelie's like, what, the oldest Vampire in the _history _of Vampires. She has her own town, her own personal boyfriend Vampire protector... This isn't adding up."

I listened to what Shane was saying, and he was right; it didn't add up. Why would Oliver let Amelie be taken? Unless he wasn't there, maybe no one had been there – no one that would have tried to protect her.

I was up and walking through to the kitchen before I even realised. Taking my phone out of my pocket, I opened the door and had it thrown back in my face. I fell to the floor, my phone flying across the room, hitting the wall that used to contain a portal.

"Claire! Oh Claire, I am extremely sorry, I had no idea that you were there! Oh, I really am sorry, dear." Myrnin's remorseful voice kept bickering apologies.

"Myrnin," I interrupted, "I'm okay. It was my fault as much as yours. Anyway, have you heard anything about Amelie?" I asked. I felt hands slip under my arms and drag me to my feet, and I knew it was Shane. The weight of the ring was once again evident and I was glad that it was there as I knew that I was going to need the comfort that the ring offered, for the first time in a while.

"Well, Claire, that was why I stopped by. I heard talk of the disappearance of the Founder of Morganville, and I didn't know where to go to get answers. Two minutes later I found myself standing right here. So, tell me, Claire, did you hear anything about Amelie?"

"Chief Moses told Michael that Amelie was kidnapped. We have no reason not to believe her, so I was just away into the kitchen to call Oliver, although I don't know if my phone will be well enough intact now that it's just been thrown against the wall at the opposite side of the room." I walked over to where the phone lay on the ground. The front of the screen had a crack from the top straight down to the middle. "You," Claire said strictly, facing Myrnin, "Will give me money for a new screen once this mess with Amelie is cleared up."

"I am truly sorry, Claire. It was not my intention, sincerely."

After sighing as dramatically as I could, I borrowed Shane's phone and dialled Oliver's number, clicking the call button when I was finished. He answered on the fourth ring.

He instantly asked, "What have you heard?" His voice was direct and extremely concerned.

"Just the usual, you know, that Amelie's been kidnapped by whoever she was kidnapped by. That the streets are in chaos! What's going on? Were you with Amelie when she was kidnapped?" There were hundreds of questions that I wanted to ask Oliver, but I knew to start with what he knew, then I could work from there.

"Had I been with Amelie, I think you would find her through in her office right this moment where she was supposed to be, just as usual. No, Claire, I was not with Amelie when she went missing."

"When did you last see her?"

"Last night, but you probably don't want me to give a fully-detailed description of last night's events, so let's start from when I awoke, shall we? I woke up at exactly 7:32am and discovered a note where Amelie had been last night when I fell asleep. On the note, it read something to do with meeting someone that she knew from a long time ago; although, it also said that she would be back by 10am, and that if she wasn't, something terrible might have happened. It is now 11:36am and there has been no word from Amelie, or anyone for that matter, and I am becoming unglued Claire. I feel like I am going to have a mental breakdown – and you are not exactly the first person I would tell that particular fact to, but the first person I would is not here at the moment and you will just have to do." He stopped for a second, and must have realised just how fast he had been talking because he had to take a really deep breath before he could say, "I honestly don't know what to do."

"Where are you just now?" I asked.

"I am in Amelie's office. I'm trying to find something that could possibly lead me to Amelie's whereabouts, or even if not there, then who she met with at such a premature time in the morning."

"Give me a second," I said before taking the phone away from my ear and turning to look at the other residents of the Glass house, plus Myrnin. They were all staring at me, obviously waiting for some sort of answer – but to what question I didn't know. "Myrnin?"

"Yes?"

"Do you know anybody that Amelie knew in her earlier life that may be holding a grudge toward her?"

"Every mistake that Amelie made, she tried her best to clear up. Though I do recall her speaking of people that she once knew that she could not clear up the problems she had caused for, and with, them. She'd told me that she had had to go to _extreme_ circumstances to deal with it. Although from there she had never elaborated, and I had never asked her to. You must remember that while she has been a good friend of mine for many years, we have been separated for long periods of time in the past, and the activities that Amelie was involved in were not exactly my main priority at those times."

I put my phone back to my ear and asked, "Did you hear what Myrnin said?"

"I did, but if you thought it was useful then I am now beginning to realise that my previous thoughts on your intelligence were most definitely mistaken."

"I do think it was useful actually. Was there any time that Amelie kept a journal, or maybe a photo collage, or _something_ that might give us any indication as to who she met and where she might be?"

"Oh, I know that one!" Myrnin exclaimed, "Amelie said that she was once in such a difficult situation that she had to resort to the use of a journal to keep her comforted. Although she did mention burning the journal..."

"Precisely," Oliver's voice sounded through the phone, making me jump out of my skin and back in as if I was a jack-in-the-box. "Anything that could ever give us hope of finding Amelie does not exist."

"Don't say that. We aren't giving up, not this early on. Come to the Glass House with as many of Amelie's files as you can find. We will find Amelie." I hung up on Oliver and looked at all of the pitying faces watching me. "What?"

Eve walked over to me and wrapped her arms around my neck. "You're so full of hope Claire Bear, but make sure you're prepared for disappointment."

"Claire is right," Myrnin chattered, "We must not lose faith. Amelie can only be a number of places on this earth. We just need to decide what and where those places are. And no matter where she is, Amelie has the ability to keep herself alive. Whoever these people are, she described them as old friends, and maybe they just wanted to talk."

"Amelie would have made sure that she was back for the time on the note. No matter what happened, it wasn't just a chat," Michael said.

"Where was it that you spoke to Chief Moses?" I asked Michael.

"Just a few blocks down the road. It was hard to find her in the midst of all of the people, though."

"Well, wish me good luck."

I grabbed my coat from the pantry before I opened the door to leave. When I went to close the door, a force stopped me.

"Something dangerous is out there," Shane explained. "I would be a terrible husband if I let you go out there alone."

When they stepped outside, they realised that Michael had tried to make it sound better than it actually was, because chaos... That was an understatement.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3 – Morganville's History Book**

Filing through the chaos of bodies, Shane and I looked for any sign of Hannah Moses. Twenty minutes of hopeless searching left us talking to the police officers Travis Lowe and Joe Hess.

"What do you mean, she's not here? Then where is she?" Shane demanded.

Detective Lowe replied, "Look, we don't know for sure, but she said that she wants to start looking for Amelie as soon as possible. First we have to clear out the street – which isn't going to be easy – and then we're going out to investigate."

"But if you haven't seen Hannah anywhere, then chances are she's off doing something to help the case. Other than that, we've not heard anything," Detective Hess added.

"Okay, thanks," I said, and began to walk away. Then I added, "Would it be okay if you could keep us up to date with any new information?"

"We're going to be busy until Amelie is back and safe in Morganville, but if we get a chance then we'll get the information to you somehow," Detective Lowe answered.

"Thank you very much."

Shane guided me through the crowd, keeping his hand on my shoulder so he didn't lose me in the heavy crowd of people.

"What do we do now?" He asked.

"Honestly? I don't know; let's get back to the house and we'll take it from there." I could feel my heart pounding in my chest as a number of people came barging our way, but I had a destination and I wanted to get there as soon as possible. Feeling my cheeks burn with future worry, I touched my ring with my right hand; my finger following the curves and designs. The intricate sapphires joined together to make the physics symbol. No matter what happened, I would always have Shane and Eve and Michael. We stuck together.

Then I had an idea.

"Come on," I said, speeding up.

"What's the rush?" Shane asked me, and then he saw my face. "What?"

"Just come on!"

Three minutes later, the Glass House appeared, and Shane and I ran through the hall to find a commotion of vampires and teenagers.

"Should I get their attention or...?" Shane whispered to me.

"No. I need to go upstairs and grab something. Just make sure Eve doesn't plunge a stake into Oliver's heart." The scene in front of them was of Oliver shaking a pile of paper in Eve's face and Eve grabbing the sheets, throwing them onto the floor and slapping him in the face. "Okay, stop them; if you can."

I ran for the stairs and took two at a time to reach the top. In my bedroom, I found the book that I had bought from the bookshop a while ago. I had always meant to take it to Amelie, but I had never gotten around to it. Probably a good thing now, but if Amelie knew... Well, Amelie could be anywhere with anyone at this precise moment. This was the only lead we had, it would have to do.

After taking the book out of the bottom drawer, I hurried back down the stairs to a full blown fight between Eve and Oliver, both Michael and Shane trying to separate them, Myrnin chattering nonsense, which probably had to do with the history of warfare and the science of how aggressiveness is generated, whilst circling the current battle – and from the looks of it, Eve was winning.

"STOP!" I screamed, silencing the room so much that if a snowflake fell onto the floor, you would actually hear it hit the ground. I slowly walked down the stairs, now wishing I hadn't grabbed the attention of every other person in the room. Now Eve was halfway through punching Oliver, so her arm was floating in midair. And Shane and Michael were at either side of the fight, faces filled with seriousness. Myrnin sat down on Michael's armchair hanging his head to one side and holding himself with a posture as if he were a king; he too was looking at me, but with a sort of expectance in his eyes. Oliver's face, though, showed the expression of having been extremely irritated by a blue bottle fly (which if Eve turned to see right this moment it would make her immensely annoyed). Eve, instead, was getting annoyed at me.

"What, Claire? I'm beating this guy, and I must say I have wanted to do this for a long, long time."

"Oliver, Myrnin, guys... I think I might be able to get something about Amelie's past in this book, or at least something that will help us find her."

Hopping to the bottoms of the stairs, I strode over to the sofa and sat down, letting Amelie's book sit in my lap. The first page I opened was of the picture of Amelie when she was younger; the one I had spent more time looking at than the others, because it looked like Amelie. A younger version, but that made sense, since it had been taken centuries ago.

"I bought this book from the bookstore along the road from Common Grounds. I always meant to give it to Amelie but I didn't get around to it. I'd forgotten I had it until I just thought about it." As I turned the pages, I saw all of the pictures that I had looked at before, and remembered one that hadn't really stood out to me at the time. I flicked passed what felt like hundreds of pages before I stopped at one in particular.

There, on the page. It was a bookshelf; just a regular bookshelf with regular books on it – except one. The cover was made of brown leather, and it looked filthy in an old book sort of way. But this wasn't just any book. This had the Founder's mark on it, and if you looked really closely, you could see the word _'Journal' _written at the bottom. I looked around the picture and knew exactly where the picture had been taken, I recognised the bookshelf actually.

This was the shelf that they kept all the records of people in Morganville on, the one that I had visited often back when I had first come to Morganville.

"I think it's time we took a little trip to the TPU Library."

"Why?" Shane asked.

Then Michael, "What for?"

Then Myrnin, "What have you found?"

Then Eve, "What's going on?"

And finally, Oliver, "Did you find Amelie?"

Michael walked away from the finished fight and looked over my shoulder where the picture of the bookshelf lay. Michael's breath was strangely hot, which was when I realised how cold it was in the house. I hadn't noticed until now, but like always, the Glass House connected with the emotions of the residents (and just now wasn't the best time). Actually, if you looked at each individual really closely, you could see the white puff of air that spread around them after they breathed – well, the ones that actually breathed.

"Amelie was around for a long, long time – so long that we don't know exactly how long. But during all of that time..." I began.

"She would have been through lots of, as Myrnin said,_ difficult situations_," Michael finished.

"Exactly!" I shouted. "One journal wouldn't have been enough – if she kept journals, that is. And that means that, where she may have burned one, there may still many out there. And this picture shows that there is one less than a mile from this house."

"Texas Prairie University Library," Shane said, finally clicking to what they had just said.

"Duh! Why didn't we think of that earlier?" Eve exclaimed.

"Because the best place to hide something..." Oliver started.

"Is in plain sight! Oh, she is a smart thing, Amelie," Myrnin stated, nodding his head as if he had just watched a fish do a front flip on a trampoline – he was clearly impressed.

"Can we go now?" I asked.

And in a chorus of voices – both human and vampire – was a, "Yes!"

Locking the door, we made our way – yet again – through the crowded streets. Eve's voice muttering disbelievingly in the background, "I was out here half an hour ago and it was completely deserted."


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4 – Sam**

The TPU building hadn't changed at all. Every poster that hung in the corridors contained the same information that I had read day after day for years when I went here. The only difference was outside. The grass seemed less looked after, not that it was being looked after much before. Unfortunately, living in Morganville pretty much guaranteed that you wouldn't see rain... ever. Well, unless you're unfortunate enough to be killed by a master draug when a never-ending storm appears and leaves the town in chaos. And it's funny, because even with the storms and the possible death of every human and vampire in Morganville, having Amelie disappear was much worse. Having no leader to tell you what to do is like a basket of newly born babies left stranded in the desert with nothing to help them survive. Even when that exact leader is transitioning into a master draug herself, at least you know there's still hope.

Looking at the small amount of faces in TPU, I could see the worry and concern, the need to hope. For these people, Amelie probably wasn't the thing they were worried about, but without her, who knows what vampires will decide to begin their ultimate Christmas feast.

"It's so quiet," I whispered. Not a sound disturbed the silence that surrounded the six travellers, the silence that swallowed them whole.

Shane whispered back, "I know." He was looking at the bookshelf beside him that contained an abnormally large spider web, fortunately there was no spider at the moment – because I was 99.9% sure that the spider would be massive.

"What are we looking for?" Michael whispered.

"And why are whispering?" Eve shouted. Well, she actually said it in a normal voice but after all of the silent whispers, the sound of a normal voice made me jump.

"Good point," Shane and I said together; which made Eve and Michael laugh.

"You two spend _way _too much time together," Eve chuckled.

"Children, we did not come here to discuss the matter of how much time Claire and Shane spend together," Oliver reminded. "We are concerned for Amelie and Amelie only." The man that had talked to me on the phone earlier was long gone. This was big bad Oliver, the one nobody could break.

"Right," I sighed, and continued to walk to the bookshelf that I had visited so many times in the past.

"Why do we always listen to him? Well, when I say _me _I mean _you_," Eve started, clearly annoyed. "I learned a long time ago to not listen to a single word that comes out his mouth."

"We're listening because he's right. We came here for Amelie, so let's find that journal – because if we stay longer than we need to, I'm pretty certain that we will be meeting with the enormous spider that wove the massive web over there." I pointed towards the spider web that hung off of the wall at the far corner of the room. "And that web and that web and that web..." There were a lot, and it felt strange that I hadn't noticed it sooner. Come to think of it, two minutes ago that web wasn't there, and neither was that one...

"It's probably watching us right this second, waiting for the perfect time jump out at us," Shane joked, but I wasn't laughing. I wasn't laughing because he was right, whether he knew that yet or not. Whatever was weaving those webs was in this room, watching us, tricking us. And it was big enough to create gigantic webs in seconds.

"Would it seem strange to you if we formed a circle? You know, tallest people spread out so that they could tell the smallish ones what they see, like, everywhere?" I knew that I sounded a little bit nervous, but with a bit of work I managed to speak with a voice that only wavered ever so slightly. Even though I wanted to warn them of – _something _– I couldn't find the words to say it.

"Claire, are you okay?" Myrnin had been standing in the background, observing everything from a short distance, but he seemed to notice that I was a little spooked.

And when he spoke that last word, I felt it. A giant blast of familiarity mixed with a spark of terror. And then, finally, a sigh of relief – well, relief wasn't exactly the word for what happened next.

"Bob?" Myrnin whispered. "Little Bob?"

"He's not all that little anymore, Crazy Clogs," Eve remarked. And for the first time that day, I let my attention stray to Myrnin's choice of outfit.

He wore a really clean shirt and tie, silk black trousers... and a pair of clogs. They weren't even black, they were a pinkish neon colour – where he'd gotten those from were beyond me. But the suit – that was stranger. It was like he was off to a wedding, or a funeral. What you were feeling at the time would probably determine how you described it. And where his face had before been mainly concerned with a slight edge of sadness, it was now a painted portrait of concerned, serious, amazed, curious, and surprised.

Looking at Myrnin now, he was probably the most colourful person that I had ever seen –figuratively, that is. He walked toward the spider with a smile that would brighten the darkest nights, and held his hand out to stroke the colossal spider.

And then I felt a shift in the air. Where before it had been familiar, now it felt alien; like something I hadn't ever encountered before.

"Myrnin, don't touch it!" I cried, and stumbled toward the dazed Myrnin in a hurry.

But he didn't seem to hear me. He wasn't with us anymore, the spider was his main priority and all he wished for was to stroke it like he once had – although it had been much more miniscule at the time. And when his skin came in contact with the hairs of the spider, a mask of pain took over Myrnin's face and he fell to the floor with a silent scream.

"Myrnin!" I bellowed as I ran for the fallen vampire, but a voice stopped me.

"You come faster than I would have expected, dear children; and with your vampire protectors – how smart."

I spun on my heels and tried to locate where the voice had come from, but truthfully, I had no idea. It sounded like a house cinema system, the echo coming at you from all directions, and I had no idea where to look.

"And may I ask what the name of the person speaking is? If you don't mind, of course," Oliver noted, twirling on the spot and looking at all of the possible locations that the person speaking could have been.

"If I told you that, this game would be a lot less fun, don't you think?"

"What we think, Mr. ButtHeadBasketF..."

"What Eve _means _to say," I interrupted, "Is that we don't really have time for _games_. You see, the Founder of Morganville is..."

"Gone?" The voice interjected. "Yes, I know. Well, considering I was the one who took her." There was a slight pause before Michael broke the silence.

"What did you say?" he demanded. "Who are you and what the hell do you want with Amelie?"

"Language child! And to answer your question, I am exactly who she said I am, _'an old friend.' _Although, I don't know where she got that from."

"How do you know about Amelie's letter?" I enquired.

"Because it was me who wrote it," the voice replied.

"No," Oliver stated. "The handwriting on that letter was Amelie's; I saw it with my own eyes. There was no mistaking the fact that..." He trailed off into silence, and every face turned to look where he was looking – apart from Myrnin, who was still passed out on the floor. Well, that was what I hoped had happened to him.

"Amelie?" I asked along with the others. And now that I thought about it, the voice _had _been female, and listening really closely proved that it was Amelie's. But it wasn't hers, not really. But it really was at the same time.

"I am not Amelie, boys and girls. I am Sam, Amelie's former lover."

"Sam?" Michael breathed.

"Not that Sam, you fool! That Sam compares in no way to my good looks and brilliant taste in clothes – although you are clueless in that department as I am currently possessing Amelie's delicate little body."

"You get out of her body at once!" Oliver demanded.

"That will not be happening any time soon, I assure you. And your friend on the floor will be inhabited very shortly also."

"What are you talking about?" Shane demanded. "He patted a spider, for crying out loud – and not even a small one, what's that about? Anyway, how's it possible to go from Myrnin to... well, _not _Myrnin? I'm sorry, _Sam, _but I'm not buying it – any of it."

"Very well; I do not expect you to understand it all with such a small amount of information being given, but you must at least understand that what I am saying is no lie. I can see it when you look at me – and even though you _see _Amelie, you can tell that it is not her. I must say, I think that is rather sweet, but only a small amount of people will notice the difference, and those people will be dealt with appropriately." The confusion on everybody's faces would have been amusing to me, had it been about a silly physics equation that I was trying to help them understand how it was solved. But this wasn't some silly physics equation, this was real life.

But that _was_ real life, to me anyway. It was an equation; an equation that always had a solution, you just had to discover how to solve it. And that was exactly what I was going to do.

"You will let us out of here at once!" Oliver started, "And you will get out ofAmelie's body right this instant!" He kept shouting out requests, commands, anything that would allow him to order the man inside of Amelie's body around.

And the others tried to stop him before he made Sam take '_drastic measures_'. But trying to stop Oliver when he was so angry was an impossible job.

"Well, if you won't shut up, then I guess I shall have to make you."

I felt the darkness surround me like a ball smacking me in the face. Then nothing...


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5 – The Crypt**

**Myrnin's POV**

I felt my eyes slip open, though I had not intended to open my eyes. Then I felt myself stand up, although I certainly was not in the mood for standing. And then I turned to face Amelie – who I did not know was there before turning to face her. And even after all of the strange things that seemed to be happening in my body, this was much more puzzling.

"Sam? Am I really here?" It was my voice, but quite a bit lower – and I was pretty certain I had not authorized this action.

"Yes, Morley, you are here. I told you it would work and so it has." Morley? That certainly was not my name, and if it had been, I would have changed it so very long ago (the only Morley I had ever known I would be lying if I said I liked).

"How did they take your little... _announcement_?" I asked, but I had decided to call myself Morley – since Amelie was calling me it. And it didn't feel like I was me.

"Not very well; they are currently locked in the crypt."

Wait! That wasn't Amelie – that was someone else. Because Amelie was gone, and the last time I had been conscious I had been stroking my giant spider – a giant spider which Claire had warned me not to touch. Of course something as silly as that would lead to _this_, and it of course it would be _me _that fell for it.

"Don't speak of that place," Morley exclaimed. "I still have nightmares of the endless nights we spent there."

Sam, I remembered saying. That was Amelie's name. _Sam _replied, "But now, we are getting our revenge. They will have nightmares for as long as we did once we are finished with them."

**Claire's POV**

My eyes were sealed shut, like the gates of someone's mind that had many secrets to keep; someone like Amelie, perhaps. I had figured this out sometime in the last half an hour or so, while she had been lying on the cold ground pretending to be unconscious.

I was in some sort of cave with my friends and Oliver. They were all awake, and they were all talking about what had happened to them – about how they could escape. But I had awoken first, and I had looked around. It was like a cave, but I could tell it was far under the ground. No sounds had filled the place apart from the people that inhabited it, the groans and breaths of the unconscious guests and the sounds of my shoes patting the ground. It had been a tricky journey, the tiredness that I inhabited me, but I'd had to find the way out.

However, there wasn't any. Unless we were rescued; which, let's be honest, wasn't going to happen anytime soon. So after searching the crypt-like thing, I had dropped to the floor very ungracefully and slammed my head off of the rocky wall at the side and slammed it again on the stone floor. It had made me want to take a nice, long, peaceful nap – but unfortunately, the others had woken up just ten minutes later – and they hadn't seemed as worn-out as I was, but I didn't have the power to ask them how they felt. They had all pretty much woken each other up, and they had tried to wake me up too, but I now realised that they thought that I was still unconscious (which I didn't mind; my brain was a mess of information and gaps that I didn't have the patience to deal with). I could feel Shane's presence beside me, though. He seemed to be worried that I wouldn't wake up at all.

I felt bad for allowing him to think that, but the energy had just drained out of me, the way that the energy had just flooded them.

Most of the time that I had been laying still, the others had been talking. I hadn't really been paying attention to what they were saying, but I suddenly heard something that drew my attention.

"So, we've decided that Amelie is definitely possessed, and that there is a chance that Myrnin is also possessed," Michael stated.

"I think Claire is possessed also," Oliver's voice piped up.

"No," Shane, Michael and Eve snapped altogether. I could have smiled at their outburst, but I hadn't even had enough energy to find it funny.

"Look," Shane began, "Claire is not possessed; she's just taking a little longer to wake up."

"Actually..." Michael said. "What if Oliver's right? What if Claire's..."

He was interrupted by me very quietly whispering, "I'm not possessed guys; just drained." The amount of effort it took for me to say those six words was enervating, and somewhat terrifying.

"Claire!" Eve and Shane bellowed simultaneously.

"_Now_ look who spends too much time together," Oliver said matter-of-factly, and the other three burst out laughing. They were happy again; I didn't know if I was happy about that or not. I couldn't feel anything, like the emotion had been drained out of me alongside my energy (and I hadn't realised it until only now).

"Claire, how are you feeling?" Michael asked, as Shane hugged me and Eve did a small drum rhythm on my back.

"Exhausted," I said simply. I had decided that one word answers would be the best choice for my current situation.

"Can you move?" Oliver questioned. And I answered by moving my head slightly to the right, towards Shane.

"Oh, Claire!" Eve chanted, and shuffled over to lie beside me on the opposite side from Shane. "Now we're all awake and..." Eve stopped, and then gasped, and finally screamed.

"What's wrong?" Michael asked with concern, dashing towards his wife.

"It's, it's..."

"Blood," Oliver stated, loud and clear. "I _had_ wondered why the smell had been so accentuated, but I had just assumed that as I was stuck in an underground vault-like place with four human beings with beating hearts and fresh blood floating through their veins that it was normal." He stood up from the spot on the floor a few feet away and walked in my direction.

Meanwhile, Shane was shouting, "What do you mean, blood?! Why would she be bleeding? She only said she was tired."

"Actually, boy, I think you'll find she said she was _exhausted_. And the reason behind that is the blood loss she has been suffering from," Oliver said, "Where does it hurt, Claire?"

"Everywhere," I whimpered.

"Do you know what could have happened to have made this occur?" he asked.

"I fell," I croaked, "I hit my head off of the wall and fell to the floor. I was looking for an escape." The last word was barely a whisper.

"You have been awake for a while," Oliver noted, but his voice raised slightly at the end, waiting for reassurance.

"Yes, I..." I started. "I... I..." All of the breath seemed to flood out of me in a second and I felt the carbon dioxide fill my lungs. I began to cough lightly, and I could feel the others crowd around me in a hurry, saying words that I couldn't understand.

And then the coughing became deeper, more deadly, until I could feel a liquid fall into my hands as I was rolled onto my side. And even though my eyes were closed, I knew it was blood.

Something was happening to me and the only person other than me that could solve the equation was currently possessed.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6 – The Plan**

**Shane's POV**

I lay beside Claire for a long time. I didn't know how long because, first, there was no clock and, second, I couldn't be bothered counting the seconds as they passed, turning into minutes, into hours, and maybe into days. Our current situation was, in no way, a good one. Amelie and Myrnin were possessed, Oliver was being... well, _Oliver_ (the cold and annoying one at that). Eve was crying, and I was surprised that she hadn't yet flooded the cave with her tears. And Michael obviously sat by her side, comforting her in a way that I envied.

Because I couldn't give Claire the comfort and love that she needed, she was out cold – once again – and it was unlikely that she was going to wake up any time soon, if ever.

"No!" I yelled, making my chest ache – it was worth it though.

One thing I hadn't realised about the current situation was that I was also crying, and for some reason that didn't scare me (or surprise me). Claire had made me into something that was worth something, and she was lying on the floor with blood outlining the space that her head had been before.

I was making things worse for myself, I knew that, but in the deafening silence that encircled every one of us, my thoughts travelled to the next thing that could possibly happen to Claire, or anyone of us in the next five minutes, or ten, or twenty. As time continued, the possibilities got bloody, really bloody.

"Oliver," I pointed, but I wasn't actually pointing... "You need blood, so drink."

Oliver looked at me as if he had never seen me before, as if I was a completely different species. Which I was; he was a vampire, I was human. It was general knowledge that vampires were higher up the food chain.

"You're bound to be thirsty. Take the donations from a _willing _volunteer."

"Why would you offer me your blood? You always hated giving your tax fee, and that was done medically."

"Claire would have offered, okay?" I replied. "And what I find odd is that you would drink her blood without a second thought, but my blood isn't good enough for you – well, thanks. Anyway, Claire would have normally offered you hers, but she's not really in the best... position to be offering you her blood."

After staring at me for a minute longer, he shuffled over and took hold of my arm. The bite was slightly painful, but after it just felt numb – like I'd been given an anaesthetic. Once Oliver was finished, he shuffled back over to where he had been before and sat silently, but I saw the nod of gratitude that he directed toward me.

Eve and Michael had sat through the entire occurrence in silence, but now Eve was up, and she was annoyed. "We shouldn't be here!" She shouted. "It shouldn't be like this! All we wanted was to get a freaking journal and now we're locked in a tomb thing and we can't find a way out! So, Sam ButtHeadBasket! If you can hear me now, open the stupid door and let us go!" The last five words were a crescendo, and as she got louder the words got higher, and when she screamed the 'go' it was practically a high pitched squeal.

However, it seemed to have the wanted effect.

"What's the racket about?" Myrnin asked when he was down in the crypt with me and the others.

Oliver was up in an instant and standing face-to-face with Myrnin.

"That is quite a lot of energy for someone that has been starved for three days," Myrnin stated, and then his voice held a spark of understanding. "Ah, one of you has been allowing him to feed on you. That's sweet, but incredibly disgusting. Come now, Sam wants to see you."

"You're not Myrnin, are you?" I asked, but I already knew the answer – as did the others.

"Of course not! But this is just temporary; I will be back to my old self again shortly." He gave a little giggle, but stopped when he saw the annoyed expressions of the faces in front of him. "Do you not get it?" he said, 'I will be back to my _old _self again short–"

"We know what you said!" Oliver interrupted. "And the reason that we are not laughing is because it was not amusing, not because we didn't get it."

"Look, if Amelie..." Eve coughed and gave a dramatic sigh. "If _Sam _wants to see us, then he can come down himself."

We all continued to sit on the ground and glare at the person wearing Myrnin's body.

"You are building my frustration, and that is not something you would wish to do, did you know me."

"See, that's the problem. We _don't_ know you; we don't even know your name. And it shouldn't be your frustration that's growing since you aren't the one that has been locked in here for _three days_," Eve lectured.

"_Don't you dare! _You just stated the fact that you don't know me, and that shows with every word that you speak. Yes, you may have been locked in here for three days – but me and my people? – we were locked in here for several centuries! So, don't you complain. We never did." Myrnin started shaking, and let go of a heavy sigh. "I was not supposed to tell you that."

Eve walked over to him and watched him curiously, and I could see Claire doing that (if she had been conscious, that is). It was strange, because while she was knocked out cold, we all had to make her be here in some way.

"What's your name?"

Myrnin looked at Eve with eyes filled with sadness that could only be put there after thousands of years of living a hellish life.

"Morley."

"As in..."

"No," Oliver told me, "This is not our Morley, just as Sam is not our Sam."

"No, you're right Oliver," Michael started, "This isn't our Morley, this is our Myrnin. And that isn't our Sam that is our Amelie. And just like Claire would have said – were she with us at this particular moment – we are going to save them, and we are going to do so as quickly as possible." The determination in his eyes was contagious, and just looking at him, I could feel hope rising.

Claire would not die. We would get Amelie and Myrnin back. And we would get Morganville back to how it was supposed to be... Happy.

"Well, Morley," I said, "Would you be kind enough as to get Sam to come here because one of our people is certainly not well enough to make the journey."

Morley looked down at where Claire lay with a puddle of blood surrounding around her. Concern filled his eyes, and he whispered, "Claire" in a very Myrnin way.

"Myrnin?" I asked.

He looked at me and opened his mouth to say something but his eyes closed, and when he opened them it was Morley once again.

"Sorry about that," he apologised, "I will go and fetch Sam." And with that he whizzed away.

"Did you see that?" I asked everyone.

Michael replied, "It was Myrnin."

"But how?" Oliver asked.

Eve said, "Okay, Claire head on. Myrnin must still be in there. He must see everything just how Morley sees it, and when he saw Claire like that," she looked over at her but quickly looked away, "The emotion flooded him so much that he managed to regain control of his body, not for long, but he still did it; which means that it's the same for Amelie. When Morley comes back with Amelie, we need to do something that will get a reaction out of her."

And suddenly, everybody looked at Oliver.

"I volunteer to threaten to kill him," I said cheerfully, and Oliver glared at me. I smiled back.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7 – Poison**

**Myrnin's POV**

Claire.

The memory of her lying in a pool of blood – unconscious, cold, alone – haunted me from the very moment Morley left the Crypt. I did not know which was worse, being stuck in such a dark place for three days with people to keep you company, or being stuck in your own body and not being able to control it, having nobody there to speak too; just like Amelie and I.

Morley was on his way to obtain Sam, and then we were headed back to the Crypt. Every time I cross paths with the person wearing Amelie's face, I try as hard as I can to get through to her (whether telepathically or conversationally, it would not matter). And the chances of that have just gone from slim to possible, as I just did so myself. The secret ingredient is emotion, a strong emotion like pain, or hurt, or sorrow that helped me once again take control.

So there was still a chance, I would not give up hope.

"Sam?" Morley asked, tapping Amelie's shoulder once and then stepping back.

Amelie turned around, looking behind me as if to say 'where are the prisoners' – because that's what they were; prisoners.

"The girl is injured, Sam. There is blood everywhere, she in completely unconscious. They told me that there is absolutely no chance she would be able to make the journey."

Sam glared at me, annoyance and rage filling his eyes. "What would it matter? She is unconscious; she would not hear a word anyway." He turned and sauntered away. "Bring them to _me_. I will not ask again."

I filled with rage, and the temptation to scream, "Stop!" was so strong that I actually did. It had happened again, I had broken through.

Sam stopped in surprise and turned to face me. "You manage to break through, how so?"

"How so is unimportant, nor is the fact that your friend has possessed my body, and soon he will be back. You must go into the Crypt yourself and help the girl."

"I do have reason to believe that you care for her. Am I correct?"

"Go to them, for I will not take them myself. Not while I can control my own body."

"Oh, the Crypt... I remember all of the horrifying days we spent in there – Amelie, myself, our people. The hope that one day we would be free to leave – which we were, after our desiring fathers turned us into the monsters that we are today."

"I apologise, but I do not know what you are talking about, nor do I care."

"Amelie did not tell you? I must say, I am surprised. After the research that I did before planning this... _event_, I was positive that she would have told you how she became the _oldest _vampire." Amelie's face looked genuinely bemused, though it turned passive again and Sam spoke.

"Very well. I cannot trust you to bring them to me, so I suppose I should go to them," and Amelie passed swiftly passed me. I was glad to have taken back charge of my own body, even if for a short period of time.

**Amelie's POV**

He had been away to say it. He had been away to tell Myrnin about the horrific beginning of my long, long life. Fortunately, I had managed to break through slightly and change what Sam had been planning to say. When I had seen Myrnin, the real Myrnin, he had given me the hope I most terribly needed. Somehow he had managed to break through, and I would too.

Sam was on his way to the Crypt, and travelling there brought back memories that I had hoped would be gone for good. My father had done this to me, the almighty Bishop. Everything that happened from now was his doing; his and his scientist friends.

The dark staircase was as familiar as the sunlight, though it had been such a long period of time since I'd walked down these stairs, felt the darkness surround me until the light grew and offered me safety.

Though I could not feel him or hear his thoughts, I knew Sam felt the same way. Oh, the explaining I would have to do once this was over – if this was ever over. Oliver... I missed him, and I knew that he was on the other side of the passage, him and four children.

When we reached the passage, Myrnin's eyes closed, and when they opened there was a cloudiness that had not been there before.

"Morley? You decide to join us?" As always it was my voice, but not me speaking. It was terrifying, having somebody aside from you control your actions and speech.

"What happened?"

"These two are going to be hard to contain, though no worries, we will manage." I stepped forward and whispered the words of the Passageway. The next step was to enter.

"Shall you go first, or shall I?" Morley asked.

"I shall go. Wait here unless I call you down," Sam replied.

"Of course," Morley said. He bowed his head and took a step to the side, and I took two steps forward before jumping into the darkness below.

The landing was a blur. First, I saw the group of children that I knew so very well seated on the floor, and then Oliver rose to my arrival. And then I saw Claire lying on the floor with blood surrounding her.

I gasped, and it was me – not Sam.

The others looked at me and I knew that I would not have long.

"Morley!" I called. "May you leave us, I have something I wish to discuss and you need not stand up there until I leave." While I was calling up to Morley I kept my eyes focused on the floor where Claire lay.

"Are you sure?"

Annoyance flickered in my eyes.

"I am certain, Morley. Now leave." I heard the sound of the passage open and close and then hurried over to Claire.

"Amelie? Is it you?" It was Oliver. And his voice was so painfully familiar that tears threatened to fall.

"Yes, Oliver. But first I must do something."

Kneeling on the floor, I started my work of eliminating the poison that had Claire had been injected with.

"What are you doing?" Shane asked. His voice was filled with distrust and hope.

"Boy, will you please sit down. I need to do this before the intruder returns."

He fell silent.

Rolling Claire onto her back, I gathered all of her hair into my hands and placed it to one side. And as I moved her hair, I saw the almost invisible dot that I had watched being pierced into her skin just two days before. Allowing my fangs to slide out, I bent over Claire and bit into her neck.

The foul taste of poison was the first thing I noticed, but until she was rid of the poison, both she and her friends would suffer.

"What do you think you are doing?!" Shane repeated, this time much more annoyed and much louder. He pulled me off of Claire and threw me to the ground.

I was off of the ground and holding Shane against the wall in an instant, and I watched as he stared into the eyes that only half belonged to me at this moment.

"If you want me to save Claire, you will allow me to do what I have to do to succeed in the task." Letting go of the boy, I glided back toward Claire and continued until I could no longer taste poison.

Patting my face to ensure that no blood was visible, I turned around to see the disgusted faces of my audience.

"It was the only way to rid her of the poison that was unfairly injected into her."

"Poison!" Eve screamed. "What the hell went on when we were unconscious?"

"I assure you, you do not wish to know." This gained many horrified stares that I chose to ignore as I could feel the poison travelling through my body, and I had to cough to overcome the feeling. "The poison that was once in Claire is now travelling through my blood stream. For as long as it is there, Sam cannot return."

"Who _is _this Sam guy?" Eve questioned.

"I shall explain, I promise you. But first we must get Myrnin back, and to do that, we must get out of here."


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8 – The Escape: Part One**

**Shane's POV**

"How are we supposed to get out of here?" I demanded. "We looked everywhere and there is no exit!"

"That's because you can't see it. Look, over there." Amelie pointed toward the roof of the Crypt, a few feet along from where she stood. "Concentrate of that exact spot. Keep focused and you will see it."

I stared at the small stone that practically dangled from the stone roof. "I can't see anything," I told Amelie, looking toward her.

"_Keep looking_. If you continue to turn away, you will never see the exit – which means that you will never get out of here."

"I see it!" Eve chanted, and pointed to the spot where Amelie indicated. "How come we didn't see that before? It's like a huge hole!"

"Wow! That is not what I expected," Michael said.

"Why is this Crypt so hidden? And how?" It was Oliver. He had clearly seen the exit, unlike me who was still trying to focus on the spot on the roof that Amelie had pointed out.

"That will be part of the explanation, I assure you Oliver. Now Shane, can you see it?" I stared at the spot for another five seconds before answering her.

"No. What you can all see is beyond me."

Amelie walked toward me and circled around until she was standing behind me. Placing her hands on my back, she pushed me forward about several feet and then stopped. "Look straight above you and do not move your eyes from that point."

I did as she said, not moving my eyes... And then a massive hole appeared, bigger than any hole I had ever seen. "Wow..." I breathed. Looking up into darkness, I couldn't believe that I hadn't seen it before.

"Perfect. Now let's get moving." She was away to continue, but I cut her off.

"And how are we supposed to get up there?" I asked. "You and Oliver may be vampires but the other four of us aren't. _And _Claire's unconscious, so how's that supposed to work? This is ridiculous." I stared at Amelie who wore an amused expression on her face.

"If you had let me continue, I would have told you that there is a ladder on the side that you all cannot see. If you walk forward and turn around, a ladder with appear... as if by magic." I glared at Amelie but she just continued to smile. "I am sorry, but your stupidity could never fail to amuse me, nor anybody else's for that matter."

"So we're going to go up the ladder." Michael agreed. "But what about Claire? She can't sit up, let alone climb up a ladder."

"I will carry Claire to the top, and you will all follow."

"And after that? Myrnin," Eve heaved a dramatic sigh. "_Morley_ will be up there somewhere waiting for you."

"You ask so many questions, children." Amelie shook her head, exasperated. "Very well; once we are all safely at the passage, I will leave you behind and go through the passage, find Myrnin – as he may be possessed by Morley, however that does not make him any less Myrnin – and I will put the poison into his system. After this, Myrnin and I will return for you with plenty poison to keep us going until we can rid ourselves of the parasites that control us."

"Parasites? I thought that Sam guy used to be your lover."

"That man has always been the most narcissistic, egotistical, self-absorbed man that I have ever met. We, well, we were lovers to some extent, but many centuries ago." Amelie turned to face Oliver and even I could see the jealousy behind his expression. "I had gotten rid of him a long time past but it seems that the past cannot be put behind us quite as easily as we would like to believe."

"Awkward." Eve whispered, and I did my best to bark down the laugh that had begun to rise.

"Anyway," Amelie declared, turning to face her audience. "We leave now."

**Amelie's POV**

The faces of the three children as they looked up into the terrifying darkness wore expressions of worry, hope, and misery. Well, I say three but really I mean four; Oliver looked simply afraid as he too looked up into the shadows. Michael, Shane, and Oliver were attempting to guard their expressions, but they each failed miserably. I hadn't realised how much I had missed them all until I had seen them again; Eve, the contagious hope that travelled off of her in waves. Michael, and the way he looked so much like his grandfather it broke my heart. Oliver, his inner soldier; the thing that brought him his compassion and strength, his bravery and love. Shane and all of his clever stupidity – the love he carried for one girl, one girl that is loved by many.

Claire.

Even I had grown to love the dear girl as a daughter. She had been my critic; expressing her opinions on the way I run Morganville, what I do wrong she states so clearly – even when discarded on the floor with poison running through her veins and blood bordering her head.

Not only had she expressed to me her opinion, but she had helped me to be a better person (or should I say a better vampire.) And she had volunteered to help – or, at least, helped – when I needed it. Some of the time she hadn't had a choice, for example, Myrnin. When she became a part of my community and agreed to have me as her patron, she agreed to do any tasks that I asked of her. She had found the cure for vampires; sixteen years old at the time and _she _had been the person to do it.

And her latest achievement was bringing me back to myself. Seeing her lying there and knowing that I had done it – not me, but still me nonetheless – had triggered that wanted emotion. And the poison inside of her, it has allowed me to disconnect Sam from taking control of my body. Even when she suffers, without her knowing, she helps the people that she loves.

"Why can't you guys just carry us up?" Eve wondered aloud, and it was clear afterward that she hadn't meant to.

"As much as we would love to carry all of you up to the very top of this channel, it is a far journey. As Claire would not be able to make the journey up herself, I can make an exception." Shane looked back over to Claire, and thinking that nobody was paying attention to him, he silently scrambled across to where she lay on the cold stone.

"Claire?" I heard him whisper. "Claire? Look, I know you're unconscious and all but I just wanted to tell you that there is an exit after all. We're getting out of here Claire; me, you, Eve, Michael, and Oliver. Amelie's going to carry you up, and it is Amelie, just in case you wake up in her arms." He lent forward and planted a kiss on her cheek, and then moved over to her lips. I turned away as he finished off his speech, and listened to his light footsteps as he strode back toward us.

"Is everybody ready?" I asked, and they all stared at me as if I were crazy; all excluding Oliver, who took a step forward so that he stood directly beneath the channel, bent his knees and took off so that he shot up out of sight. Twenty seconds later he was back down and wore an expression filled with wonder.

"That _is_ a far journey." This earned quite a few groans from the children that stood there.

Children; I'd called them that since the day I had officially met them, not so long after Claire had arrived and began to stay in the Glass House. Now, it didn't suit them. They had all grown and become their own person, every one of them. They weren't children anymore. They had all matured.

"It is indeed. Shane, you go after me. Eve, you go after Shane. Michael, you go after Eve. Oliver, you wait down here until we all reach the top. Be ready to catch someone just in case... Well, just in case." I walked over to Claire swiftly, and smoothly hoisted her off of the ground. When I reached the other four again, I glanced around the circle. "Everybody knows when to go and what to do?" There were nods from everyone. "Perfect. Don't complain about the filthiness of the ladder, there is such a thing called hot soapy water and I guarantee that you will be allowed that special privilege when this part is over."

I stepped forward, holding Claire in my arms, and leaped off of the ground. Once I reached a certain level, I had to grab hold of the ladder to allow myself to, yet again, soar into the air. I could hear the others beginning to join me. Another pounce and I was halfway up the channel. Three more to go and I would be there, both me and Claire. She would be to safety, and the others would be on their way.

Fourth jump and I could feel the gravitation full trying to force me back down as I became slightly faint – never once had I carried another person up the channel before, and it turned out it was harder than it seemed. Just as I got into the position that would allow me to take the fifth jump, I heard the passage open.

"Sam? Is everything okay?"

I inhaled a deep breath and hoped everything would still go to plan.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9 – The Escape: Part Two**

**Amelie's POV**

"Yes Morley," I called back, emphasising each word so that the travellers below would hear me. And just as I had hoped, they fell silent. "If you would do me the favour of retrieving the poison that we keep in the lab, I would be extremely grateful."

"You sound much closer than before," Morley pointed out.

"I am on my way up, not long to go until I reach the top. But I am in need of the poison, Morley."

"Of course, I shall be right back." He sounded a bit uncertain, but disobeying his master was not something he would ever consider.

After I heard the sound of a door closing, I leaped up the extra two flights and placed Claire on the ground as lightly as I could.

"Is he gone?" Shane called in a loud whisper.

"Yes. But try to stay silent while you continue your journey. He is a vampire, meaning that if he is currently listening, the chances that any of us will be leaving here are very slim."

The hushed clatter of the others making their way up the ladder seemed to be the last thing on my mind as I glanced toward Claire. She should have been awake by now.

I bent down beside her and moved a strand of her hair from her face. She looked much older than when she first came to Morganville. Two years since then and she had grown into her own woman, just like Eve. Both were happily married and they were so young – but it was obvious to even the strangest stranger that the two couples were in love.

Unfortunately I had never had much luck in that department, and when I did eventually find someone whom I loved dearly, I never once acted. And then when I did, at last, admit to myself my feelings for him, he had already been murdered from the hand of my father. The same father who had turned me into a vampire in the first place, creating an entire generation of vampires and allowing those vampires to create more...and more...and more. Now there was a town full of vampires, and no doubt there were others spread throughout the world.

I hadn't thought of the fact that Morley could return at any second, and when I heard the passage open, I jumped in surprise. There he stood, Morley; but it was still Myrnin. No matter what happened, I would still be me, and Myrnin would still be Myrnin, whether we were possessed or not.

He looked at me, bemused, and seemed to realise why I was bent down beside a girl that meant nothing to him – a girl that should have meant nothing to me. The realisation startled him so much that he made the mistake of turning to look at Claire, and with the emotion he had given Myrnin, he was out and Morley was gone.

"Is she alright?" He asked instantly as he walked over.

"She is fine, Myrnin. She should wake up soon." I couldn't help keeping my guard up, I knew it was Myrnin, but I also knew that Morley could appear at any moment.

He let out a sigh of relief and bent down on the other side of Claire. "Can you hear me?" He asked her. "I'm here, Claire. It is me, Myrnin."

"Myrnin, you..." I was cut off by his protests.

"I will only be a moment." He turned back to face Claire, and smiled as if he were about to cry. "You will wake up soon, do you hear me? Amelie said so herself." His expression turned slightly darker, less caring. "And Amelie knows best, does she not? Little Miss Princess, Founder of Morganville, Amelie Bishop."

"Morley."

"Why, of course! Your friend has already experienced the hurt and defeat and whatever else he felt when he saw the girl the first time." He pointed toward Claire. "Do you think that the caring of a child can overcome an all-powerful vampire immortal more than once? I am sorry, dear Amy, but I am much stronger than that."

"Don't you _dare _call me that. We may have been friends centuries ago, but that time is long past, and that name has long been forgotten."

"I understand that we are no longer friends, since friends do not usually lock friends in Crypts. And I think that you will find that _Amy _is quite a popular name in this day and age. Oh, how lucky you are, to be the first person in history to ever have the name Amy. But you are many things, are you not? The winner of both the 'oldest vampire' award and the person (well, vampire) with the 'cruellest father' award," he paused to laugh, and then finishing by saying, "Why so many people believe you is beyond me."

"I thought it was true. You, Sam... You were supposed to be dead! And it wasn't until I was possessed by a long forgotten friend just five days or so ago that I learned that you are not. Honestly, I had forgotten that you had even existed until then."

"Like you could have forgotten Sam... I remember the two of you sitting in the corner of the very Crypt you just left, lying in each other's arms, fake smiles and sad eyes making you both irresistible to each other."

While he was chattering on about how two people can really grow apart over quite a few centuries, I couldn't help but notice the fact that he held the poison in his hand...

And a plunger.

It was perfect, but the chances of grabbing it and stabbing it into his vein were pretty slim considering the reaction time of a vampire, and the fact that I would need to get the poison inside of the plunger. But if I didn't, then he would allow the poison in my bloodstream to dissolve, and that would make this entire escape pointless.

And then I had an idea.

First I closed my eyes in as dramatic a way as possible, and then I took a deep breath to make him notice the 'change' in me. And finally, when I opened my eyes, I put on an expression of utter bemusement.

"What is going on?" I muttered in a very Sam-like way, my voice lower and my face grim.

"Sam?" Morley asked, clearly hoping but also keeping his guard up to ensure that it was definitely his friend.

"Well, of course. Who did you think I was, Amelie? Now, that..." I started, "Is just plain offensive."

"Oh, thank goodness! Amelie was here! She wanted the poison, though I have not yet figured out what for!" He believed the act, and I had a chance. Just to make sure, I stayed still for a few seconds and was glad to hear silence; the others had heard Morley and I speaking, and now they were staying silent.

"Well, why else would such a devious character want it?" I stopped, as if actually asking him the question, but when he stood there waiting, I was forced to continue.

And the only thing I could think of was the truth.

"To get rid of you, of course! To bring her friend that lives inside of you back to himself," I sighed in outrage, "Well then?"

"Well then..." Morley repeated.

"Hand me the poison."

"What for?"

"Well, if she managed to get enough of the poison into her system, it means that she drained this girl of the poison that I had put inside of her. We need to inject it again." I looked at Myrnin's face and wondered what he was thinking (both him and Morley). It was strange, seeing a person that I'd known and trusted for years and years become someone other than himself, someone that I could not trust.

He handed me the poison while asking, "What if Amelie showed them the escape? She couldn't have left with the girl without telling them where the escape is."

When he finished speaking, I knew that it was now or never. And that was exactly what I kept telling myself as I zoomed behind him and plunged the plunger – that I had already filled with the poison – into the vein at his neck, but before I could flood his veins with it, he threw me across the dark passage and as I landed against the stone wall, I screamed as if in agony to send a message down to the people halfway down the tunnel.

"You really have become weak, Amelie Bishop. I remember all of those days that we spent together, doing justice to the world. But now, I don't even know if you are the same person." He pulled the plunger out and threw it to the ground, hatred blaring in Myrnin's eyes. "And now, finally, I am going to make you pay for what you did to me, what you did to Sam, what you did to _our people_." He barked a laugh that was not in the slightest way amused. "I remember lying in that Crypt, so starved that I couldn't even make the smallest sound. But the thing that gave me hope, the thing that gave me the need to stay alive, was the thought of plunging a stake through your heart." Just then he pulled a very familiar silver stake from the pocket of Myrnin's very large trousers. "Do you remember this? Our brilliant creation. This stake, the one that _you _helped to create, will be the death of you Amelie Bishop. Though first, of course, I have got to torture you in the same way that you tortured us for centuries." And he strolled forward with determination lighting up his eyes, and I knew that I had failed – that tomorrow I would be dead – so I chose to give up. To let the hand of fate take its turn.

And as Myrnin came toward me – my murderer, my friend – I gasped as Claire rose behind him and stuck the plunger in the same spot I had and, in Morley's moment of shock, pressed on the plunger.


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10 – At the End of the Channel...**

**Claire's POV**

When I woke, a feeling of dizziness washed over me. It wasn't so much that if I was to stand up at that moment I would fall flat on my face, but more the fact that if someone were to grab hold of my foot and begin to drag me away, I wouldn't be able to stop them – not that I expected anybody to be grabbing hold of my foot right this moment.

Trying to connect with the thought of reality, I opened my eyes as much as they could endure and tried to get my bearings.

There was the familiar stone wall, but it didn't look as it had before. The place was smaller, and a door stood to the right of me. Behind me, I detected some sort of commotion. And then the voice speaking became recognisable.

It was Myrnin.

But while it sounded like him, it didn't at the same time. The voice was stricter, more demanding. And the words that left his mouth made me more confused and completely terrified.

"Do you remember this? Our brilliant creation. This stake, the one that _you _helped to create, will be the death of you Amelie Bishop."

It was Amelie. He was talking to Amelie; whoever _he _was anyway.

My body was finally beginning to register everything around me; the cold stone that I lay upon, the dark wall that was oddly straight at this part of the Crypt.

I turned slightly to my left and saw a syringe filled with some sort of liquid. It had clearly been thrown there, whether on purpose or by accident I didn't know.

And then I heard Myrnin say, "Though first, of course, I have got to torture you in the same way that you tortured us for centuries."

And that was when I realised that he had been possessed. Just like Amelie, he had somebody else controlling him, controlling his body. Although Amelie didn't seem to have that problem anymore, because I was certain that if Amelie had still been possessed, the person possessing Myrnin would be calling her Sam, not Amelie.

I crawled toward the syringe, making sure to be as quiet as possible, and gently lifted it from the ground. If I was going to do this, I would have to do it now, and I would have to be quick because I could already hear Amelie's silent prayers and the footsteps of Myrnin's possessor.

I scrambled up and stabbed the syringe into Myrnin's vein with deadly accuracy, and using the advantage of surprise, I pushed the plunger and allowed the liquid to flood into Myrnin's vein.

He stopped, and I knew that I had done something – but what that was I didn't know. And the energy that I had used to get the element of surprise had been all the energy that I had had, so I quickly sat down before I fell down.

**Amelie's POV**

I sat and watched as Claire sat down. She seemed worn out, a dreadful side effect to having poison plunged into your vein, but even then she had just saved my life.

She didn't seem to be thinking so much as dreaming, her eyes had become slightly cloudy and her breathing had slowed down. I stood and walked toward her; this made her look up.

She smiled, "Hi."

"Thank you, Claire. Thank you ever so much." I bent down so that we were at the same level and wrapped my arms around her.

She didn't even seem to have enough energy to be surprised, so she just rested her head against my shoulder.

"Where's Shane? And Eve, and Michael, and Oliver? Where are they?"

"I don't know about the others, but I am right here and I am ready to get the hell out of this place."

It was Shane. He had just reached the top of the channel and was just climbing over the top. His eyes were set on Claire, love and happiness filling them; even in this terrible situation.

"Claire. I'm so glad that you're okay," he paused, and a questioning expression fell over his face. "You _are _okay, right?"

I looked at Claire and, with Shane, waited for her reply.

It was a nod of her head. "Yes. It's you guys I'm worried about; I've been unconscious for... Well, how long have I been unconscious for?"

"Three days," Shane answered, and Claire's face filled with sadness.

"Three days. I was unconscious for three days. You had the extra disadvantage of protecting me for three days."

"Don't you dare think like that."

I moved away from the couple as Shane reached us, and I watched their interaction from the sidelines.

"You helped more than you could have thought. Sam had put poison in your system, and when Amelie saw you like you were, the emotion made her come back to her old self. And the poison in your system, Amelie drank it, and it's keeping Sam away at this very moment. That's what you gave to Myrnin just there." He took her into a hug just as I had before, and she again rested her head on his shoulder. "So if you think about it, you did more than any of us did."

"He is right, Claire. You were brilliant. Myrnin will be very proud of you when he wakes up."

I looked over to where Myrnin lay on the ground. It hadn't been like that for me, but it's normally different for everybody.

"What have I missed?" Eve's voice spoke as she climbed up the end of the channel and jumped up. When she caught sight of Myrnin's still body and Claire's consciousness, she seemed to be caught with mixed emotions of joyfulness and uncertainty. "It seems the answer to that would be a lot." She skipped toward Claire and Shane and nudged the boy out of the way, taking Claire into her arms and leaving Shane sitting at the side glaring at her. "Hey, Claire Bear. Oh my god, that was a total three way rhyme! I think I should become a poet."

"Where is Michael?" I asked Eve, and she turned her head to face me but allowed Claire to continue to lean on her.

"He was just a little bit behind me, so he should be up soon." And just as she said the last word, Michael's head popped up from the top of the channel. "And there he is!" Eve chirped, and waved him over.

"Is she..?" He gestured towards Claire, and Eve nodded her head. He turned back toward the channel and shouted down to Oliver, "We're all up." He flew up like a rocket.

For the next five minutes, we all sat in silence, waiting for Myrnin to awake. And when he did, he looked as confused as he had so often been when he was a sufferer of the vampire disease.

"Why do you all look at me as if I am going to kill you all?"

And Shane barked a laugh that contained no humour but plenty relief.

"Well, it worked. Now we can go," I said, and everyone applauded.

It _had_ worked. And now we were going home.


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11 – The Passage**

**Claire's POV**

They stood before the passage – that was what Amelie had called it when she told the group how to get to the exit of the building. It just looked like a door, camouflaged into the stone, but a door nonetheless. There was even a handle, though Claire was certain that it wasn't as easy as that. It was probably a decoration, or a way to bring hope to the people that may be lucky enough to find the escape when they are down in the Crypt.

We hadn't; Shane, Eve, Michael, not even Oliver. I had been unconscious most of the time, but I had been the first to wake up – with poison in her system at that – and she _had_ had a look around, but she also did not see or discover the channel. So when Amelie had returned to her old self and come to rescue us, she had helped everyone see the roof of the Crypt for what it really was; our escape.

I had been updated on all of the things that I had missed while being unconscious, and I was beginning to take in what they had told me. Sam and Morley, Morley being the vampire that had been threatening to kill Amelie while possessing Myrnin's body, were still inside of Amelie and Myrnin. Amelie had explained that they were being suppressed by the poison that was now in both Amelie and Myrnin's bloodstreams; Amelie had drained me of the poison that Sam had put injected into me, and I had plunged the syringe containing the same poison into Myrnin's vein before he could kill Amelie – or, more accurately, before _Morley_ could kill Amelie.

"You are always our saviour," they kept telling me. "Even when you're unconscious, you help, even without knowing, you save lives." But I didn't believe that, I _couldn't _believe that. While they had been either not in control of their bodies or waiting to starve to death in the Crypt, I had practically been sleeping through it. I had been at peace when all of the others had been trying to grip on to a slither of hope, fighting to hold on, to survive.

The thing that hadn't been talked about was how this event actually occurred in the first place. While they had told me about the fact that Sam was possessing Amelie and that Morley was possessing Myrnin, they hadn't said anything about what Amelie – what _Sam _– had said when Eve, Shane, Michael, Myrnin, Oliver and I had gone looking for the journal to find some sort of lead involving the disappearance of Amelie.

"I am Sam, Amelie's former lover." I had no doubt that there had been many questions asked when Amelie had come back to herself, but she obviously hadn't answered them yet because I knew that they would have told me already. They were being lenient with Amelie, giving her time to do whatever it was she would have to do. And anyway, getting out of here was the focus of today's events, not some ancient vampire gossip.

"So, how did you say you open it again?" Shane asked, his brows creasing together.

Amelie let out a dramatic sigh. "I am the only one here that can open and close it, apart from Myrnin, of course. I, though, have had more experience with opening this in the past." She coughed and quickly moved on before anyone could interject. "All I need to do is say a sequence, prick my hand, and drop my blood on the floor in front of the passage." So she did exactly what she said she would, the sequence being the humming of a tune, and the door opened.

"Well, that was easy," Eve said.

"Could it be too easy?" Michael asked.

Amelie turned to face the others, "This is the first time in thousands of years that I have used this while being in control of my own body. But this is how it has always worked." She turned away again and walked through, gesturing for the rest to follow.

**Shane's POV**

It wasn't what I had expected at the other side of the passage. In my mind, I saw bars and chains, blood and corpses. I smelled death, pure and clear, and I heard screams that came from every direction. This seemed more like a hospital, not one that sold blood bags to vampires or collected a pint of blood from the humans of the town for tax; this seemed like a normal hospital, for normal people. It smelled the same, the usual medical smell that you would expect when you enter a mainstream hospital. The same colour of walls, as there was colour. They were a nice light blue that seemed to make you smile even though you didn't know what you were smiling for.

And from where I had just been, from where we _all _had just been, this was like walking into another universe.

We walked through a few corridors that, if we turned to go back, I wouldn't be able to find the passage to the Crypt again on my own for all of the different directions that you could turn every time you were faced with a dead end.

Then we came to a stop, and there was no alternative direction – not even a direction at all. There was just a door. A door that had a blank plaque screwed into the wood.

Unlike all of the other plaques that we saw when passing all of the different doors in the all of the different corridors, this was completely empty. No writing, not even any scratches.

Amelie pushed on the handle and the door opened. Behind it was a hall – a big hall; one that contained pillars and curtains, a nice wooden floor, and grand wallpaper. It didn't have any furnishings, though. No place to sit, no place to rest a mug of coffee.

But it did have people. It had lots of people. And they stood in a triangle formation that consisted of about one hundred bodies – which only took up the first quarter of the room.

"Who the hell are you?" I demanded, facing the two men that stood at the front. But I already knew. They had been working for Sam and Morley, and now they were getting their revenge.

"You don't recognise me?" One of the two men at the front asked, the fakest look of betrayal crossing his features.

"You work for Sam and Morley," Eve stated, clearly annoyed.

"Close," the other man said. He was as enthusiastic as a dog being given a bone.

"We _are _Sam and Morley." And after giving it a few seconds to sink in, the man on the left continued. "You didn't think we would let you go without a fight. Oh, what am I saying? Of course you would! You haven't yet heard the big secret. _Amelie's _secret."

He turned to face the man that had spoken before. "What do you say, Morley?" So that was Sam. "Should we tell them?"

The man that was apparently Morley looked Amelie straight in the eye. "I think we should let her do that."

And two women came from behind a curtain to the right of where we stood, and once they were set on the ground and Sam and Morley were seated, Sam twiddled his fingers in an evil sort of way which matched the sly expression on his face. "Where is the popcorn? I think I'm going to enjoy this."


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12 – Amelie's Secret**

**Amelie's POV**

He looked exactly the same; long silky brown hair that hung back in a ponytail, hands that were so thin you could see his knuckles. He even wore his favourite shirt, the shirt that he used to wash straight away if it ever got dirty in case we had to travel somewhere. It had a faint gold background that was covered in brown patterns, and he wore with it a brown waistcoat – and to go with his favourite shirt were his favourite brown trousers and a new pair of brown leather shoes that gleamed in the light of the sun. He always loved that outfit because it brought out the colour of his eyes, eyes that held such a warm golden colour – eyes that only his family bloodline were lucky enough to have. But in those eyes, the love and care that had lived in them centuries before were gone, replaced by a rage fuelled determination. The love he had felt for me was just a blurry nightmare to him now.

And then there was Morley. He too looked the same, his dark brown eyes – eyes that were so dark they sometimes looked black – had always hated me, even when we were supposed to be friends back in the very beginning he had hated me with a passion. He, unlike Sam, had been well treated well by his father in the ways of food before ever being turned, so the fat excess stayed with him from then onward. His clothes weren't some that I had seen before; he wore a suit, a shirt and tie, a coat and trousers. All black and white, as if at a funeral – but that was probably the intention.

The men standing behind them were just as they had been back then also, though I could remember few names. They all wore ordinary clothes that you were more likely to see in this day and age than the clothes of the leaders; because that's what they were now.

Leaders.

Sam and Morley were the leaders of their people, of which had once been my people, and they were forcing me to tell the people that I loved and cared for the secret that I could not find the strength to muster. But that was no excuse, the only way that any of us were going to escape was for me to tell them how I became a vampire, and I was to tell them now.

"My father..." I began, and I was interrupted by the person who had told me to do this in the first place.

"If you are to tell the story, you might as bloody well tell it right." Morley retorted. "_Our _fathers..."

"Of course," I nodded my head with fake appreciation. "_Our _fathers, Sam's, Morley's and my own... They were scientists – when they were human anyway." Claire and Myrnin both looked at each other, and Shane, Eve and Michael all looked at them. "They loved the world of science, of how things worked and how things became. They loved it so much that they wished to create it, to think of something that nobody else had thought of, to do something that no one else had ever done before."

I took a deep breath and continued.

"They started to experiment. They had done so before, but in vials and beakers, never once on a living thing. But these experiments that they began to carry out, they were done on animals – rodents, to be specific. Mice, rats, squirrels... Anything that they came across became the victims. And one day they found an ill mouse lying outside their door, and as they were out of rodents, they decided to experiment on this mouse.

"They believed that they could cure the mouse of the disease that it carried, the disease that they did not know would result many years later in the black plague – though not even the greatest fortune teller could have predicted an outbreak like that. And so they conducted experiments on the creature and recorded the results, and then three months later – when we were just sixteen years old, and my sister Naomi was just fourteen – they managed to cure the mouse of the disease.

"It was a miracle, they always said. And they were so proud of themselves that they kept the rodent – as they had grown fond of the animal that had allowed them to do something entirely different, entirely unique – and fed it like they would have fed a pet, held it as they would hold a newly born baby.

"We used to sit at the back of the room and watch as they cared for this animal more than they ever cared for us, and I do remember feeling like we were thought of as nothing but unpleasant children to the fathers that were supposed to love us. But then three years later, when they realised that the mouse had grown no older, and had continued to bite them for the years that they kept it, they knew that they hadn't just cured the mouse, but granted it with immortality."

I sucked in my breath and tried to stop the tears that threatened to fall as I thought back to all of the tragic days.

"This was their major breakthrough; this was the news that they were going to spread throughout the world... Until they realised that if they did that, then everyone would want it, the cure that granted them immortality. And they realised that they wanted it too, they wanted to be immortal, to live on for eternity as the strong and powerful vampires – that's what they had called them. But they had only tried it on an animal, and they were uncertain whether it would work on humans, or whether it would kill them."

I could feel myself shaking now; hear my heart beating a million miles an hour even when my heart did not beat.

"So..." I tried to force myself to continue but the words would not come.

"So...? Oh, come on. Don't leave us hanging, Amy."

I threw a glare in the direction of Sam and mustered up all of my willpower to continue. "So... They decided to experiment on humans. They decided to experiment on us."

Claire gasped and looked at me with an expression of sorrow and horror. "But, you were their children."

"And they wanted immortality more than any child." I breathed in deeply and carried on. "But when we argued – told them that they were insane, that they would kill us – they locked us in the Crypt.

"At that time, there was no ward that hid the escape, though there was no ladder. They managed to get up and down with a rope, taking us up for more experiments, putting us back afterward – making sure to leave no way for us to escape. But even when the changes were clear to us, we made sure to keep the changes unclear to them. So they carried out more experiments on other children, these people that you see here." I gestured to the hall of vampires. "At the time, these people didn't know what was happening to them, so the changes in them showed and our fathers decided that it the 'cure' was safe for human beings and took it. Leaving all of us to fend for ourselves, they left to discover the perks of being a vampire.

"We learned the ways of being a vampire on our own, helping each other to get through the terrible change. Two hundred years later – after we had learned how to be vampires and how to take care of ourselves without hurting anyone, a herd of vampires found us. At first we were confused; the only vampires in the world were us, our fathers, and the children that they had experimented on. But it turned out that wasn't true, and that our fathers (while discovering the perks of vampirism) had discovered how to turn a human into a vampire without any injections or science involved. So they had sauntered through country after country, turning innocent human beings and leaving them alone to fend for themselves. And along with the innocent, they had turned human beings that were willing to travel with them to create a vampire army."

The faces that looked at me were shocked and intrigued, as if they were listening to a scary fairy tale – which was one way to describe it.

"When we started making all of these discoveries, we decided that enough was enough. We made our own army of vampires that had been turned by our fathers, trained them and trained ourselves. What they had done to us, our own fathers, and what they were doing to other people, it made us sick. Immortality was just the beginning of a terrible war. So we called our army 'The VA,' as in The Vampire Assassins, because we had decided that we were going to hunt the vampires that followed our fathers; all vampires, good and bad."


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13 – The Betrayal**

**Amelie's POV**

Sam stared at me with a bored expression on his face. "Yes, we decided to hunt vampires. But don't stop now! We're getting to the goodpart!"

I inhaled as deeply as I could, knowing that vampires did not need to breathe but feeling the need to. This was not the situation that I had expected to be in at this moment in time, and certainly not the way I had expected to be telling all of the people that I cared about the worst deed I ever did.

"So..." I continued, "After that was decided, we left the place we stayed with an army of rebellious vampires, all loyal, all brave, all kind. We were a family, and we decided that together we would be a family for all of eternity, that together we would avenge ourselves and our peers for the horrible thing that had been done to us.

"And we did what we had set out to do. We murdered both Sam and Morley's fathers – as mine unfortunately got away – and we murdered the hundreds of innocents that followed those whom we hated. And when we were done, we were happy. Although we knew that it wasn't the end, that there were vampires out there who did not want to be vampires. And my people, they decided that they wanted to put them to rest; to kill them all one by one so that they would suffer no longer with the curse of immortality.

"I told them no. I told them that if it had been us that had been turned into vampires by strangers for no other reason than for them to experiment, we would have wanted to be saved, to be helped by people that had been through what they had. Though none of them would listen to me, they were all so determined to '_help_'the other vampires of the world."

I heard a clap and looked up from the floor which I had been staring at with tears in my eyes, and saw that it was Morley whose hands clasped each other, though his eyes did not hold a glint of praise. "You make us out to be the bad ones, when it was _you _that locked us in..."

"Lether finish, Morley," Sam said in a very calm and collected way. "We asked her to do this, so the least we can do is listen to what she has to say."

I nodded my head in appreciation – real appreciation this time, not fake – and continued on with what I had been saying. "I did not want to allow this, though I could think of nothing that I could do to stop them. I sat for days on end, thinking of ways to reason with them, to bring sense to the words they spoke and the actions they planned to make.

"And then I realised that there was something that I could do, but if I went through with it then I would lose the only family I had left in the world. So I decided that it was them, or more innocent people's lives; and the choice was so... so obvious that I had to do it, I had to throw away the trust that I had gathered after years and years from the only people that I had ever loved.

"So I locked them in the Crypt." And when I said this, I heard someone gasp, but I did not look up to see who it was. "I locked them there with no blood, no clothes, and no comfort. I locked them in the place that haunted all of us in a way that ran so deeply through our veins we could never recover from the memories. I put up the wards so that they could not see the escape way and left them there. I had always believed that I would go back to let them out, but eventually I just let myself forget; if they were in the Crypt, I could forget all of the terrible things I had ever done in my life, all of the people that I had killed. So I kept on pretending.

"I had always thought that they would have died down there with no blood, but it turns out I was wrong." I lifted my head up and signalled to the giant audience that I had betrayed so very long ago, and I let out a very bitter laugh.

And then I looked into the eyes of Claire. She looked at me with fierce determination; it showed how strong she was. I could see just from her face that there were so many mixed and battling emotions fighting the others for attention inside of her.

I heard Sam speaking to Morley, and Morley seemed to be arguing with him. But before Morley could say anything to us, Sam stood and gestured to the entire hall. "So you see. This is why we cannot allow you to leave this place, not without a fight at the very least – and we all know how that will work out." The hall of vampires laughed and chattered among themselves as if they had interesting gossip to share, and then the sound of Sam's voice continuing stole the attention away from the little conversations that conversed between the people. "You will not leave here alive, so if you would just give up with any hopes that you may have, it would be much easier for both you and us."

"Why do you wish to punish the people that stand with me?" I demanded as I began to feel slightly disoriented. "Why do you wish to, yet again, harm innocents when they have done no wrong – to you or to anyone else? You can take me, and you can kill me, but do _not _lay a hand on the people that stand here with me."

The pity that swam in the eyes of the man that I had cared for so deeply many hundreds of years ago wiggled its way under my skin. "Why, Amelie, do you not understand? We do not wish to harm you, that is not our intention, we simply wish to cause you emotional pain, pain that physical harm could not even begin to accomplish. We shall not kill you, Amelie... We shall allow you sit by – very much alive – and watch as we murder each and every person that you care for."

I walked forward so that I stood in front of my loved ones, protecting them from the harm that threatened, "Over my dead body."


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14 – The Battle**

**Claire's POV**

As Amelie walked forward, I noticed something about her that I hadn't before. Amelie was tired – completely exhausted – and she had just taken up the protector stance.

"Over my dead body," she said, pronouncing each word with an emphasis that only Amelie could pull off, and she kept her posture as elegant as it would have been had she just woken up from her beauty sleep in Morganville and had a speech prepared for the Morganville residents.

I walked forward, terrified inside but showing no fear. I couldn't allow Amelie to stand and protect us when she was just as in need of protection. While I was walking forward, I could hear the bitterness of Sam's laugh. The delightful shiver it sent down my spine and the chilling way the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end as they imagined the pain that was away to come was almost unbearable. "You care so deeply and affectionately for these... these children and their fellow companions. If you could have been like this a few millennia ago, we would not be standing here today, and we would not be standing against each other but _with _each other, united as a team, as a faction. But you failed us then, and I will ensure that you fail your current _family _now."

Before I could even think to be terrified, I could hear words forming, and it was me who spoke them. "You call us children but I assure you we are not. Three years ago, I was as innocent and care free as _children _could be. I moved to Morganville to study physics, and along with that I found the most loving family that any person on this earth would die to have – literally. You may believe that in a fight Amelie, Oliver, and even Myrnin would have to stand tall and defend all of the children that stood with them, but us _children _have been through enough that we could almost guarantee that we are no longer children, and we will fight with our companions (as you call them) and we will help them to win the battle that you and all of your people start."

Sam stared at me with uncertainty flowing off of him in waves, and I could see the glint of pride in Amelie's eyes as she turned to wink at me.

Sam seemed to come to a decision and his eyes turned cold and hateful. "No matter. You may fight along with your companions, though I should warn you that you will be fighting for not only escape but for your lives. As you see, you are much outnumbered, so if you have any last thoughts you would like to share, I would be very happy to allow you to speak."

And then Eve sauntered forward, and she allowed her weight to balance on her left side and folded her arms across her chest. "I just wanted to say Mr. ButtHeadBasket that I hope one day you will regret all of the crimes you have committed – and are about to commit – and find true peace in the world." Everybody stopped in surprise, and then Eve finished with, "Anyway, enough with all the sweet talk, it's time to bring it on like kung fu Panda!" She performed a very dramatic karate move that resulted in Eve lying on the floor with her arms flailing in the air, but she quickly recovered and jumped up into the move it seemed that she had meant to perform in the first place. And in the moment that followed, the crowd of raged vampires burst into fits of laughter, and I heard Eve's motive loud and clear.

We all ran forward, using the element of both time and surprise to get a head start on our opponents. Unfortunately we had no stakes, but as I had proved so many times before, stakes can be found anywhere in the form of very simple objects; for example, the pencil that I hadn't noticed sat in my pocket.

I grabbed the pencil and looked around for the closest opponent's heart, and when I turned in an almost three hundred and sixty degree circle, I caught someone scrambling towards me in the corner of my eye. I let them think that I hadn't seen them, and when they were close enough, I turned on the spot and stabbed the pencil into the place the woman's heart should have been beating.

Continuing on, I could see that Shane was tackling a male vampire about twice his age – in looks, obviously – who seemed to be twice as tall as him, and if they hadn't been in this particular situation at the time, I would have burst into fits of laughter.

Three men came running at me and I had the tempting urge to scream, not because I was scared of them, but because they held Eve in their arms. She lay draped across the six arms of the men that kept running forward, but she looked unconscious. And when the urge became impossible to resist, I broke into an endless scream and ran in the opposite direction as the men, which meant right into them.

All cried in surprise and I was certain that I had broken one of their noses – for all the good it would do; he would probably recover in minutes. Eve had been thrown into the air and I was now waiting on her safe return. When Eve was in catching distance, I did my best to hold my arms in the proper position, but before I could catch my best friend, someone pushed me from behind.

I quickly turned on my spot on the floor to see which vampire attacker had come to make sure that Eve had fallen down and crashed into the floor, but it was just Michael, and he was holding Eve in his arms.

"Sorry," he apologised quickly, "I didn't think you would be able to catch her."

"No problem," I assured him. "And you were probably right, but I didn't have much choice other than let her fall."

Michael pulled me up with one arm as the other kept Eve in place over his shoulder, and then he scooted away.

There were quite a number of the opposing vampires lying in heaps on the floor, or rubbing their hands together as if they were in some kind of unspeakable pain, and then there were the vampires that stayed on the outlines; either waiting until the other vampires were down to just swoop in and take the last chance, or too scared to get involved – which didn't make any sense in the least.

I looked around for some sort of way to get the group of vampires attacking Amelie, the group attacking Myrnin, and the group attacking Oliver away from their victims – wow, vampires could hold a grudge. There was nothing in sight, until I turned and noticed a pillar standing not too far from the fights. It was quite obviously on its last legs, but if I was to push it down, chances were it would crush quite a few of my people in the midst of crushing the attackers.

I rushed over to them and repeated pillar over and over again while they were being attacked by hungry vampires, and then I did giant U-turn and headed toward Shane, Michael and Eve (who was still unconscious in Michael's arms. "The pillar," I said, pointing over to it and running toward it, and then I heard footsteps behind me.

It was Shane. "What?" He asked when I gave him a dumbfounded look. "Like you have enough muscle to pull that stunt off. I'm just here to help." He held his hands up in surrender, but the reply he got was me rolling my eyes and saying, "Fine."

We sprinted toward the pillar meanwhile making sure that there were no vampires following them, because there would be soon enough. When we reached the pillar, Shane stood behind the pillar and I stood behind Shane. We pushed with all our might (Shane pushing the pillar and me pushing Shane) and when I let out a heavy groan, Shane turned and looked at her with a guilty expression on his face.

"What?" I asked.

"Is it bad that I'm a little turned on right now?" He asked, and I slapped him on the back and turned his head to face the pillar. We both pushed just a little bit more and the pillar seemed to give way under Shane's fingertips and it began to fall.

As Shane watched the tumbling commotion, I shuffled forward and held onto his hips, standing on my tip-toes I whispered, "Not at all." I could see the little smirk that formed even from behind him, so when he turned around to face me, it looked brighter than the sun – and that was pretty bright. He bent down to kiss me but seemed to realise the situation that we were in, the fact that they'd just pushed a pillar over to crush some people, and when he came to this conclusion, he just nodded his head and turned back to face the uproar.

We had managed to crush a number of vampires under the weight of the pillar – none that we knew, thankfully – and now the scene was quiet, completely silenced, and everyone was staring at Shane and I. Eve, who seemed to have come to, gave a very weak applaud. The opposing vampires weren't in the mood to give praise, though, and it didn't look like they were in the mood to offer mercy either.

Well, it had been a good idea at the time.


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter 15 – The Bargain**

**Myrnin's POV**

What a strange occurrence. A very large pillar had just fallen down, and I must say it crushed quite a few people on the way; though fortunately not anyone of importance. I had heard Claire running around whispering the word "pillar" over and over again though I did not comprehend what she had meant. Now, looking at her and the young boy Shane, I now understood what had been on her mind at that particular moment.

I looked around and spotted Morley, his eyes filled with hatred. I didn't usually tend to hold a grudge, but I didn't expect to be forgiving him any time in the future – possession of another person's body is a very hurtful crime. Even after spotting Morley, I could see Sam nowhere.

I felt scared for Claire, and for the young man that stood beside her. When they had pushed the pillar over, they managed to kill almost all of the vampires that had been attacking Amelie, Oliver and I. And even the ones that had not been killed, they were currently distracted. I looked at Claire and tried to catch her eye, but she seemed to be looking into space – and I had no clue where she thought that would get us.

It didn't matter anyway, she and Shane had barely ten seconds from now before the vampires pounced, and I planned to save them.

But before those ten seconds were up, Sam's voice travelled through the room, and it seemed that he had been away fetching himself a cup of tea, meanwhile leaving all of his soldiers to do the dirty work; though it seemed by the look in his eyes that he regretted ever leaving in the first place.

"What in the lord's name has been going on here?" he called out, and the vampires' attention changed from the young couple to their leader.

"It was them, sir," one of the male vampires told him. "They pushed over the pillar, so they did. Almost killed all of us, sir." The man was Irish, or had been Irish before he was turned. The accent was so pure and fresh that you wouldn't believe – had you not been told – that he had been locked in a Crypt for thousands of years; his accent had certainly not fade over time.

"I can figure these things out for myself, Richard. Now..." Sam tilted his head at Claire and Shane as if to discourage them, but they didn't seem to be moved by the sudden glare. "You do realise what you just did, don't you?"

He didn't receive a reply, but it seemed as if he had meant it as a rhetorical question, if it had been a question at all.

"You just knocked over a pillar that existed in the 1200's." The faces that looked back at him didn't seem to care all that much. Well, Shane didn't. Claire seemed as if she was resisting the urge to attempt to stand it back up. "That must have taken some effort that only a vampire usually tends to have." Well, this conversation was definitely taking a turn for the more confusing side of things. He laughed with a sound of strangely true amusement. "You look both uncertain and scared, children." And he seemed to stumble on his words; taking a breath, he corrected himself. "You look both uncertain and scared, just as true opponents should be."

I looked at Claire, and her expression wasn't what I had expected. She wasn't confused; she was in the middle of understanding – though what she understood I hadn't quite figured out for myself.

"No," Claire stated with a dull, blunt voice. "You cannot, and so you will not."

"He cannot what?" Shane and I asked – though his use of grammar was horrendous in comparison.

"We are his rivals, his opponents; though he finds the qualities of people he would like to call his own in us." She looked at Shane as if to see some hint of comprehension in his expression. Where she did not find it in his, she certainly found in mine when she looked toward me.

"No, absolutely and most certainly not," I said.

"I think that you will find that it is not your choice," Sam told me, and then turned back to face Claire and Shane, walking closer to them but stopping a fair distance away to ensure that they did not grow uncomfortable. "And I am afraid, Claire, that you have... grabbed the wrong end of the stick, shall we say. I do not seek for you both, just you. Any vampire can help to thrust a pillar into a group of chaos, but only someone intelligent can think to do it in the first place."

"I have refused this offer before, and I will do it again. I do not want to be a vampire," Claire said.

And when she said this, Shane seemed to grasp on to the topic of conversation and blurted, "What?!"

"You may say that now, but I have an offer that you would not refuse – if I know you as well as I think I do."

Shane began to speak again, possibly with more offensive words this time, but Claire stopped him, seemingly reassuring him by the look in her eyes – set determination.

"Now," Sam said in a louder voice so that every vampire and human in the room could hear what he was saying. "You may think that my side have lost, but I can assure you, you will not win this particular battle as, unfortunately, there are no longer any ancient pillars waiting to be thrown into the fight." And as if on cue, an even bigger group of vampires appeared through the door that we too had come through. "You see, we have backup." And he gestured to the group that stood behind him.

Unfortunately, comparing these vampires to the ones that we were currently fighting, these looked much stealthier and ten times stronger.

"And with this backup, not one of you will leave here alive. Unless..." And he turned back to look at Claire, singling her out of the entire group of us.

"You want to turn me into a vampire," she simply stated.

"Yes I do. And in return for allowing me to take you on as one of my own vampire fighters, I shall allow your friends to travel home safely. I think that is a very lenient, if not overly grateful, bargain. Do you not?"

"Yes I do."

**Claire's POV**

"No!" Shane shouted.

"Shane..." I whispered to him, but he didn't let me continue.

"No way in hell am I going to let you become a vampire just so that we can surrender and go back to living our stupid Morganville lives. Claire, if you let him turn you into a vampire, you wouldn't be mine anymore." Tears started forming in his eyes, but he pushed them away.

"Shane..." Again, he interrupted me.

"No. Just no. If we need to die, then come on, let's die. We are _not _letting you become a vampire Claire, and that's the end of it."

"I would still be me, do you not get that? I would still be Claire, and you would still be Shane. I will always be yours. And you will always be mine. This happening, it wouldn't change anything."

"Yes it would. Do you think Amelie was the all powerful _ice-queen_ before she was turned? She would have been just like you, with her scientist dad and all."

"You talk about me as if I am not here," Amelie pointed out, but Shane ignored her completely and focused on me.

"And for Frank, he became more vulnerable, becoming the one thing he hated most in the world. Everything would change Claire, _you _would change."

"What about Michael?!" I asked, slowly getting worked up at the current situation. "When he was a vampire, did he change? Apart from the fact that you were ice cold to him for weeks before finally coming to terms with what he was. Is that it? That if I was turned you would hate me?"

"No, I could never hate you."

"So then why would you prefer to die than live on in Morganville?" I asked.

"Because you wouldn't be living on, and I wouldn't be able to live on without you."

I turned away from his face, so full of pain that my head had begun to ache. "Have you come to a conclusion?" Sam asked me.

"Yes I have," I answered, and I walked over to him and stood behind. "You can have me."

Shane let out a pained yell of protest, and I tried to mask the tears that fell from her face and onto the floor, one after the other.


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter 16 – The Discovery**

**Amelie's POV**

Before I could process what had just happened, the vampires in the room began to march in single file through the door that we had come through previously to get into this current situation. None of us moved, but we all stared and Claire, each trying to get her attention.

We didn't.

She kept her eyes glued on the floor and her face well hidden from all of us. One thing that I could see was the continuous flow of tears that fell from her face and onto the floor in a repeated pattern.

I wanted more than anything to go over to her and comfort her, to reassure her that everything was going to be okay. But I knew that if I did, Sam would bring back the vampires and kill us here without hesitation. And I couldn't do that to Claire. She was sacrificing herself for us, and while we allowed her to do so, we would save her.

When every vampire had exited the room, it was only Sam, Claire, Myrnin, Oliver, Shane, Eve, Michael and myself remaining; even Morley had left us all in privacy. Nobody knew what to say, we all just looked at Claire, hoping that she would show us some sort of reassurance – that she had a really clever plan in action so that we would all get out of this alive, her included.

However, when she eventually looked up, her eyes were filled with tears and sadness, and her hands were shaking slightly. She didn't want to do this, but she was brave, and she knew that if she were to _not _do this then we would all die; and she wasn't willing to risk that.

"Oh, please! Can somebody break the bloody tension; it's getting stuffy in here." And then Sam gave a small giggle. "Oops, seems like I just did. Well then, does anyone want to offer a goodbye to their dear Claire?"

We all turned to look at Shane, but while his eyes were focused on Claire, they held no emotion. This just made Claire's tears fall quicker, and made comforting her more of a priority than me surviving.

"I do," I said, and quickly walked over to Claire and held her face in my hands when she turned to look at me. "You don't have to do this, Claire. We would all be perfectly happy to continue fighting."

"Amelie, I _do _have to do this. If we were in Morganville, and someone was threatening to kill all of us unless you allowed them to kill you – because you're already a vampire – would you say yes? And I mean this in the way that we were so outnumbered that we would all be dead in the next twenty minutes or so."

She did have a point, a point so valid and clear that it made it hard to argue with her. "Yes. I would. But were I sacrificing myself, it would be a completely different situation."

"Why?! Why is it so terrible that I risk my life so that you can all live?" she demanded.

"Because you are only eighteen! You have your whole life ahead of you and you are willing to throw it away for the people you care for, which shows the bravery that lives within you. But _that's _the difference, Claire. As you all discovered earlier, I have been alive – well, undead – for years, centuries, millennia, and if it were me throwing my life away, at least I could say that I had lived a long and eventful life."

"Yes, you're right. I _am_ only eighteen. I _do_ have many years ahead of me. But you are _wrong_ when you say that I couldn't die and say that I lived a long and eventful life. I came to Morganville almost three years ago. My motive was to attend TPU, and later attend MIT. I have done both! And meanwhile, I have helped to discover the cure for the vampire disease, I worked for a crazy ass psychotic vampire – no offense," she told Myrnin, "I have attended my dream school. I have created an invention that could completely change the way vampires and humans interact (which led to a total screwed up mess that we don't need to bring up in this conversation) and I lived as a ghost for almost a day – I mean, who could put that in their CV? And I got married, for God's sake!" She turned around in a fit of adrenaline and strode toward Shane with determination. "I found the person that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with at an extremely young age, and that person, that person is you, Shane. I found you and I married you and I loved you and was loved by you more than many people in the world could ever dream of. You saw me in a way that no one else ever could have and I am more than grateful for your love and for your support and I will take that with me to my grave – literally – and I will cherish the fact that I had you in my life for even these few years." When she finished her speech, she continued to look into the eyes that offered her so much love and concern that I had to look away. And after a few seconds, she turned back to face me and walked toward me again. "My point is, while I am only eighteen years old, and while I have only been in Morganville for three years, I feel like I've lived there my whole life. And I feel that I lived a full life there... because I did. All of the achievements that I made, I would never have made had I not come to Morganville at the very beginning."

And by just seeing the fierce look on her face, I thought it best not to argue with her.

But then she fell.

Well, it was more like she collapsed. First her legs went and hers arms flailed in the air, and then she was lying on the floor and moaning in agony.

"Claire?" Everybody questioned at exactly the same moment; Eve, Shane, Oliver, Michael, Myrnin, me.

"What's going on?" Shane demanded as I sat next to Claire and asked her, "What hurts?"

She couldn't seem to speak, but ended up clutching her stomach to answer my question. I raised her top up slightly and saw nothing that appeared out of the ordinary, and then she turned her head to side and opened her mouth. Fortunately, Myrnin moved out of the way in time when Claire threw up, and I just wished that Sam had been sitting there and was instead hadn't moved in time; but I had no such luck.

"What in heaven's name is going on here?" Sam's voice echoed through the room, and when I realised for myself what was going on, the words blurted out before I could stop them.

"She's pregnant."


	17. Chapter 17

**Chapter 17 – A Glimpse of the Future**

**Shane's POV**

"Well, that's an inconvenience," was the first thing I heard after Amelie made her statement; a statement that suggested that the love of my life was pregnant with my child. I hadn't really considered having a child all that much, though I know Claire had; thinking up names had been her main priority. It was funny, because I felt totally calm about the fact that Amelie had just confessed that Claire was pregnant. I don't think that the information had sunk in yet.

The voice was Sam – but that was no surprise – and he sounded completely serious. "What?" he asked, becoming defensive when everyone in the room stared at him. "I can't turn her into a vampire when she's got a bun in the oven, now, can I?"

"It is not an inconvenience; it is simply a miracle of the world. If I were you, I would deal with it," Amelie said.

"And if I were you, I would make sure that what you are telling me is fact. What I do not want is for you to cheat me, and then for me to find out and have to kill you all – even dear Claire," he sounded sincere, but his eyes were filled with pure evil.

I hadn't thought about that, the possibility that Amelie was lying so that we would all get out of here alive, the possibility that Claire and Amelie had made a secret plan in the case of an emergency. But I didn't want to think that Claire would do something like that, and I couldn't ask her if she had. While she had been awake just after she collapsed, she was now unconscious – and the amount of times that I had said and thought that over the past week was beginning to terrify me.

How many times can someone fall unconscious before it makes an impact on how their body works?

"I am not lying, Sam," Amelie replied, much more politely than I would have, "The girl is pregnant. And now she is unconscious, which is in no way a good sign." She didn't look at Sam as she spoke; she kept her eyes trained on Claire's face. I envied her for the fact that she could look at Claire for the length of time that she was without it having a terrible impact, tears just sprung to my eyes when I saw the paleness of Claire's skin, how frail she looked.

"Well, I cannot gain a bad reputation. I cannot have people knowing me as the old vampire who slaughters unborn children." He let out a dramatic sigh. "I suppose you will all be staying here then."

I laughed, and then realised that he was being absolutely serious. "Not a chance. How long have we been here now? Four days? We're starving. Claire's pregnant, she's unconscious, and she is _starving_. Yeah, sure, you might not be known as the vampire who slaughters unborn children, but you sure as hell would be known as the vampire who starves soon-to-be mothers and their _unborn_ children if you don't let us go right now – I would make sure of it." I stared at my opponent, the challenge that swam in my eyes mirrored in his.

"You do not tell me what to do and what not to do. You are only a child." And he stopped, laughing to himself in what seemed like a very idiotic way. "Your dear Claire says that she is not a child, and I do believe her. But _you_, you are still a teenager, and I judge that by the immaturity that I see in your obnoxious personality. You cannot be a father when you yourself are still a child. Honestly, I would be doing you a favour."

"Don't!" I bellowed. "Don't. You. Dare. Yeah, you're right. I'm not the most mature person in the world, and in truth, I'm only the person that I am today because of Claire. Claire, the one you want to turn into a vampire even when she's pregnant with _my _child. And although you think that I am still a child myself, that I'm not _mature _enough to be a good dad – you are wrong. For every parent, and I speak from experience, being a father is a learning experience that no one can prepare themselves for until it's actually a part of their life. And I swear to God, if Claire has my child then I will stand by them from day one; both Claire _and _the baby. So you, Mr. ButtHeadBasket, can go to hell, and you can take your other vampire friends with you."

By saying all of this, not only was I reassuring my audience, I was reassuring myself. I had lacked confidence before, seeing my wife lying passed out on the floor had pulled strings that lay deep under the surface. Using the confidence that I had just gained, I turned toward Claire and looked at the beautiful way her hair fell across her face, the way she seemed to smile even when she was asleep – because that was all she was, asleep. Soon she would be awake and life would go back to normal – well, as normal is could get – because when Claire was by my side, everything was okay.

And then I realised what I was doing wrong. I moved over to the space that Amelie sat and she immediately answered my unspoken question, shifting along slightly and allowing me to rest Claire's head in my lap.

I would stay with her until she woke up, because that was what she would have done if it had been me.

**Claire's POV**

I was standing in a dark room.

That was as much detail as I could give – as much knowledge as I had – of my current situation. There was nothing inside that I could describe, nothing in the room that I stood in that I could see.

The walls were black and when I turned around, I saw a door. It looked like the front door of the Glass House, the door that I had first walked through beaten and bruised. I had no idea where to go and it seemed to give me comfort thinking of home, so I shoved the door open and entered the hall.

It was exactly what the Glass House was like; the same walls that we had always said needed painted but could never be bothered actually painting. If I took a few steps forward, I could see into the pantry that was on my right, and if I looked to the left, the small cabinet where I had first seen the letter that Amelie had sent offering to be my patron stood in exactly the same place.

The sofa in the living room looked just as it had when Shane had first kissed me there, and the armchair at the right – Michael's chair – looked just as it had when I had first listened to Michael play his guitar, minutes before he had turned into a ghost and died once again.

The table sat directly in front of the sofa and the TV was in front of that. The familiar sight of Shane's playstation was a warming sensation.

"I'm home!" Eve's voice called through the hall, followed by the sound of the door being slammed shut.

At the loud bang, a cry began to echo down the stairs.

"I am soooooooooo sorry! I didn't mean to... I didn't think," Eve told me after she ran through to where I stood.

"It's okay," I heard myself say, although it definitely wasn't me saying it. "She would have woken up soon anyway."

And then "I" turned and walked up the stairs and into my room, although this room _had_ changed. It was no longer the pristine white that I had fallen in love with when I first came here, it was yellow. The bed was the same, but instead of having one small wardrobe, there was a newly bought big wardrobe and a small one at the other side of the room. And beside the small one was a cot. And inside the cot, which I discovered when I strode over to it, was a baby girl; the most beautiful baby girl that I had ever seen. She was crying, which had been what I had heard when Eve slammed the door shut, and she was trying to find her bottle somewhere in the cot.

But her eyes had been closed, and when she opened them, I saw Shane. I saw his beautiful brown eyes and perfectly shaped face, and I saw my auburn hair and bright red cheeks.

"Hello," my voice murmured, and when the child heard it she stopped crying and looked up. Right up into my eyes.

"Mummy?" she asked, and I felt myself break into a brilliant grin.

"Shane!" I shouted, and I could hear the bang of his feet on the floor boards in the hall. "Shane!"

"What? What's wrong?" he called in response as he ran through.

"Nothing's wrong," I told him as he came into the room and walked toward us. "Everything's just perfect."

When he looked down into the cot, the baby – _our _baby – said, "Daddy!" And then she giggled.

I bent forward and lifted her out of the cot, and while I was doing so, Shane said, "She definitely has your brains."

"Hi, Lissa," we both said, and wrapped her in a warm hug; a hug that was filled with love and tears.

And then I finally realised, I was dreaming.

I was dreaming of the future.


	18. Chapter 18

**Chapter 18 – A Dark Future**

**Amelie's POV**

Shane took my place and I stood and walked over to where Sam stood just five metres away. His face was masked, no emotion showing through his time of thought. "What have you decided?" I asked him, and after waiting so long after saying that I started to think he wouldn't answer. But he surprised me.

"I have decided to let her decide," It was a riddle, one that he knew full well that I understood. He was giving me a chance to tell everyone exactly what was going on in dear Claire's head. But I couldn't hurt Shane at this moment.

Grabbing onto the sleeve of Sam's favourite shirt, I dragged him silently away from the group of my loved ones and outside the door that had caused so much chaos. "And what if she does not decide what you wish her to? What then? There are always two possibilities shown, you know that."

"If she decides to keep the child then I shall not stand in the way of her decision. But she will be putting a curse upon a child that does not deserve such a curse." He was looking me right in the eye now, his gaze not quivering even slightly. It could have been thought of as nerve-racking, but it just gave me more of the determination I needed to destroy him.

"There would be no curse were you dead, but sacrifice has never been your strong point."

"I will not die so that _she _will survive."

"Exactly my point, you can't even sacrifice yourself for the love of family. You're pathetic and we both know it."

"It is not love. Not one single part of this is based on _love_. And we both know that she will choose what I wish of her, because if she does not..." He finished, leaving me to fill in the gaps.

It was true, Claire was smart and she would discover that having this baby was not at all a clever idea. But she wasn't just smart, she was loving and caring – and something that he didn't know – she was a child mastermind. We had the advantage in this certain situation; where Claire believed that science had an explanation for everything, she also knew that there were some things that science could just not explain – well, that's what she _had _thought. Now she knew that science was the very thing that had made me what I was today.

That did not matter at this precise moment, what mattered what misleading Sam and saving the child.

Then everything would be how it was supposed to.

**Shane's POV**

She seemed like one of the mannequins that we had walked past together – pale, pretty, and cold; paler than the clouds that never found their way to Morganville, prettier than even the prettiest celebrity, and colder than the secret room in the Glass House.

God, I missed that place. And then I laughed at myself – silently, of course. If I had been told four years ago that in four years time I would be happily married to the love of my life, had a place to call home, and had friends that were vampires... I would have laughed at them and then punched them in the face for disturbing my playstation game.

But they would have been right. Claire is the only person that I have ever loved, and my love for her is so unconditional and pure that she had filled every hole that had once lived deep within my heart. And I did have vampire friends – hell, my best friend had been a vampire for quite a while and I had come to terms with it – and I couldn't say that Amelie was the worst person in the world, even Oliver (though only when he was in his happy place) and occasionally Myrnin – when he didn't seem to be trying to steal my wife from me.

God, my _wife_. I had always believed that I wouldn't be able to find someone that would meet the required specifications, but she had somehow managed, and I could never put into words how happy I was that she had.

But now I was sitting on the floor and holding her unconscious body that was apparently carrying my child, and I was scared as hell that she wouldn't wake up, though I wouldn't admit it. And even if I did, everyone would tell me that it would all be okay, that we wouldn't let anything happen to her...

But what if we already had? There was a vampire that wanted to turn her standing... somewhere – he had been only a few feet away before but he seemed to have disappeared, along with Amelie. I hadn't noticed until now, but Eve, Michael, Myrnin and Oliver were the only people left in the room aside from me and Claire. All were in different positions, in different places, doing different things.

Eve was sitting beside Claire's feet with her legs crossed and was patting her knee in a drumming rhythm.

Michael was lying beside Eve with one knee bent and his right arm on his stomach. He seemed to be playing an imaginary guitar but very discreetly – meaning that I wouldn't have noticed if I hadn't looked directly at him.

And then there was Myrnin. He seemed to be pacing around the room over and over again, looking for some sort of escape or something that he could do to help us – to help Claire. And Oliver had found a chair somewhere in the bare room and was sitting on it as if it were his own personal throne.

Well, that was all the observation I was up for, and I couldn't think of anything else to distract me from the inevitable. So I looked back down at Claire and caressed her cheek, hoping that she would wake up soon.

**Claire's POV**

Everything seemed perfect. I knew it wasn't real, but I also knew it _was _real, or at least it could be. God, it was so confusing! Nothing seemed right but at the same time everything was right.

But then it changed. Where it had been a lovely yellow room before, it was now once again submerged in darkness. And where Shane had stood beside me as I held our baby, I was alone yet again.

As I had done the first time, I turned to look behind me. Standing in the exact same position was the Glass House door, and the only thing I could think of to do was open it. So I did, but what I found on the other side wasn't what I had expected or hoped for.

Unlike before, the hallway looked haunted, and the walls didn't just need painted, but totally renewed. Walking forward, the pantry on the right didn't have the same familiarity as before. And when I looked to the left, the cabinet was chipped and had lost a leg. I started to see spots in my moment of panic, and then I remembered that it wasn't real. Even if it seemed real, it wasn't.

So I continued through the hall and moved into the living room. The sofa lacked its usual inviting look, and the armchair was worn and filthy. It seemed like where before the house had been alive and colourful, it was now a scene from an old black and white movie.

And then two people stumbled downstairs in a hurry when the phone began to ring.

"Hello?" Michael said. "Yeah, that's me." Eve stood at his side and looked at him as he received more information from the other end of the phone. And then he dropped it.

It fell to the floor, along with any emotion that he had held onto before. "What?" Eve asked Michael, shaking him when he wouldn't answer. She let go of a heavy sigh and picked up the phone that Michael had dropped.

"I'm sorry. Michael had to go do something." And she seemed to crease her eyebrows in annoyance because she hadn't come up with a better excuse. "It's Eve Glass. What's happened?" And as she received the same information that Michael had only one minute before, her face took on many mixed emotions before finishing with a simple sadness.

"No," she whispered, "Absolutely not. You're lying. They can't be dead, no." The person at the other end of the phone must have carried on talking because now Eve started to shout into her end of the phone call, "No! They are _not _dead! She is not dead and neither is he! They are both very much alive and they have just had a baby!" Tears began to fall and she whispered finally, "Stillborn."

Michael took the phone away from Eve and ended the call. They were both crying, and I knew exactly who they were crying for.

In this dream, I was dead. And so was Shane. And so was our baby.

"Amelie was right," Eve said to Michael, her words filled with regret. "God, Michael, we let Claire..."

"Stop it. You're beating yourself up for nothing. Yeah, Amelie was right. Claire had known she was right and she kept the baby – because that's Claire. Or, at least, that _was _Claire."

He stopped and they spent the next minute in silence before Eve said, "That means Sam is still alive."

"Yes it does. But that's not our problem, not anymore."


	19. Chapter 19

**Chapter 19 – Family Ties**

**Shane's POV**

It felt like I'd been sitting in this position for hours, maybe even days, so when I felt Claire shift slightly in my lap, my attention was focused only on her – not like it hadn't been before.

"Claire?" I murmured, and when there was no reply I repeated it a bit louder, "Claire? Are you with me?"

She groaned, and not only did she have my attention but the attention of all the others in the room – including Amelie and Sam as they seemed to have reappeared out of nowhere.

"Claire?" It was Amelie, and she walked forward so that she sat opposite from me by Claire's side. "Claire? It will be okay, all you have to do is wake up. Claire? Wake up, it will be okay." She had bent down so that she could hold Claire's hand in hers, and I couldn't help but ask her what she meant.

"It will be okay? What do you mean, it will be okay. Why does she need to wake up to be okay?" I more questions sitting on the end of my tongue, however, forming the words was a task that I couldn't seem to complete at this moment.

"She is dreaming," Amelie answered.

"And? People dream all the time, or should I say _humans _dream all the time because I don't have a clue about vampires. It's what wakes us up in the morning and what puts us to sleep at night. So why is it such a big deal that she's dreaming?"

"Do you remember when we were attacked by the draug and you were sucked into a dream universe of lies and truth?"

"Is that what's happening to Claire?!" I hadn't even let her continue before shouting in her face, but I couldn't find the words to apologise to her, so I just kept ranting, "What's she dreaming about? Why would it scare her? Why is she even dreaming the way I did in the first place?" All I had ever wanted to do from the moment I had set my eyes on Claire was to protect her, if she was in some dream land then I couldn't protect her, not here – no one could.

"It isn't the same as your situation had been. You had been dreaming as if life was just moving on. Claire is dreaming of two possibilities that _could_ become her life."

"You don't make any sense! What the hell is that supposed to..." I felt Claire stir again.

"Why all the shouting?"

"I'm sorry," I replied, but Amelie was quick to correct me for my mistake.

"She isn't speaking to you. Something is happening in her dream."

**Claire's POV**

Everybody was shouting, screaming at the top of their lungs – Michael, Eve, and Myrnin. They were loud; louder than I could have ever believed was possible.

"Let us in to see Amelie!" Eve was shouting at the guard that stood in front of her with a blank expression, as if she wasn't even there. "We need to see her, now!"

Michael was shouting at the other man who seemed to be annoying him the way that only Shane could have – had he been alive, that is. "I don't care what your job is; you have to let us in. She has information that we need to save Claire and Shane."

And Myrnin wasn't exactly shouting as much as talking to everybody but getting no reaction whatsoever. "Come on, everybody. Can't we just be friends?" Although, when Eve turned around and reminded him that I was dead and that the only person that had a chance of saving me was Amelie, he joined in the rant.

I couldn't stop them, because they couldn't see me. If I stood in front of Eve, chances were she would walk right through me. But it seemed that I didn't need to.

Amelie walked through the door of the Elders council building followed by Oliver and walked down the marble steps. Everybody fell silent.

"I heard a racket out here and I believed it to be you," she smiled, but her eyes held only sadness. "What can I do for you?"

"How do we get Claire back?" Eve asked, "And Shane. How do we get them back?"

"They are not gone yet. They are expecting their baby," she stated, and then her eyes filled with doubt. "No," she whispered silently, and grabbed for Oliver to keep herself steady. She didn't reach in time, however, and fell to the ground. When Oliver stepped forward to help her up, she rejected his offer and stared first at the ground and then at the group of people that stood behind the guards.

It looked as if she were about to shed a few tears but she stood before her body allowed them to fall. "You may come in," she said simply before turning on her heels and flashing out of sight.

**Shane's POV**

She sprang forward, gasping as if she was awaking from a terrible nightmare. When she looked around at her audience, her eyes held horror and disbelief. Then she turned and looked at me, and her eyes filled with tears. She threw her arms around me and let them fall, and I wrapped her in a hug.

"What did you see?" Amelie asked Claire, and she shook her head.

"I don't want to talk about it, Amelie," she continued to cry into my shoulder and the only thing I could think to do was comfort her.

"Claire, you must tell us."

"Did you not hear her?" I asked in a harsh, quiet voice. "She doesn't want to talk about it and she shouldn't be forced to."

"I don't think you understand how important the knowledge that she gained is. Claire, you must tell me. Only I can help."

"I think you'll find," Sam added from behind Amelie, "That I am the only one that can help in this situation. Although, I do not intend to do so."

"How can you help?" Claire turned to Sam with question in her eyes. "The basics of my _dream _are that Shane and I don't stand a chance at living if we keep this baby, and the baby won't live either."

"You must have been given another possibility to observe," Amelie said.

"When everything was as happy as everything could be? Yeah, I saw that, Amelie, but I don't believe that's a possibility at all."

I wanted to say something, but I didn't know what to say or how to say it.

"It is quite possible, dear Claire," Amelie told her, "And the way that Sam could help you is by sacrificing himself."

"I don't understand," Claire said, and I didn't either.

"How can Sam help us by sacrificing himself?" I leaned to the side so that I could see Sam. "Can you explain?" I asked him.

"Maybe I should go and fetch Morley," he said as he began to turn away, but I stopped him before he could get very far.

"I don't want that guy in here! And I don't want you out of our sight if you can help us with... whatever we need help with!"

"He isn't going to run away," Amelie told me, but I didn't believe her.

"It's okay," Claire spoke up again, "Fetch Morley if you must."

I stared from Claire to Amelie to Eve to Michael and then to Myrnin and Oliver. I didn't have a clue what was going on and I wasn't sure that I wanted to, but from what I did catch this was about my baby – about _our _baby – and I needed to know if it was in danger.

"Can someone explain what's going on?" It was Oliver, and he sounded confused and slightly annoyed, or maybe he was just trying to hide how annoyed he actually was.

"All will be explained when Sam and Morley return," Amelie told him.

"You seem to be getting close," Oliver muttered, but was interrupted by Eve.

"And what if they don't?" Eve asked, "Sam needs to die for some reason that is completely beyond me, so why would he want to stay?"

"He does not intend to die, so he will not. He isn't the sort to run from his problems."

And at that moment, Sam and Morley entered the room with looks of amusement. "I think it is time that we officially introduce ourselves," Sam said. "I'm Sam Danvers." And after giving that a few moments to sink in, he added, "And this is my brother, Morley Danvers."


	20. Chapter 20

**Chapter 20 – The Fog**

**Claire's POV**

I didn't know if I had heard Sam correctly, so I thought I should check before asking more insanely confusing questions. "Did you just say...Danvers?"

"In fact, I did."

"So that means..."

"That we are related, well so it does. But I shouldn't have to waste my breath explaining this when Amelie is much better at explaining such complicated hoo-has." He smiled at Amelie and seemed to stand back as if allowing her to take centre stage.

As she began to speak, her gorgeous golden hair was pulled from the tight bun she always kept it in and she took a deep breath before walking towards me. "As you all know, Sam and I dated when we were young."

"Dated? Is that what you call it?"

"Very well. We dated, but what you didn't know was that we dated many years before our fathers ever became obsessed with the idea of immortality. We were best friends, all three of us – although, Morley didn't like me all that much."

"Understatement," Morley coughed in a discreet manner that was intended on being completely obvious at the same time.

"Fine, we hated each other. Sam did not know this and we did not know of each other's feelings of hatred toward the other, so we lived like that for many years. Sam and I were together for all this time, and we fell in love. At this point we were possibly fifteen – it had been a year and a half before our fathers' obsessions started – and we discovered that I was pregnant.

"I was obviously delighted. My father was quite the opposite, shall we say. But I was delighted. Our beautiful baby boy was born just eight months later after we'd turned sixteen, and we kept him well and happy. And then the incident with our fathers' began, and the baby was no longer safe. So after thinking long and hard, we made our decision to give the baby away.

"They were a lovely couple. They couldn't seem to have a baby of their own so were delighted when we offered them the chance at a family. We said that they could have him on one condition; that the baby kept the surname Danvers. Obviously they could not refuse, so they accepted and all was well.

"However, when the dark magic of vampires found their way into the science lab, it brought a curse along with it. Seen as we were the first vampires to exist, a curse was put on our dear child – whom was now part of a loving family and living a happy life – that meant that the next descendant of the Danvers bloodline to be welcomed into the world of vampires would lose the right to have a child unless the first immortal male of the family sacrifices himself."

My eyes were drawn to Amelie as she spoke, the story that she told seemed like a biblical story of some sort – Moses with a twist. Taking the entire thing in, I kept trying to process everything in my mind; however, I knew that was a waste of time before I had even started trying and so began my millions of questions.

"So, I'm descended from you guys." It was more of a statement, although it held a slight question in it, one that was answered by the silence. "When you said that your father, Sam's father, and Morley's father wanted to become immortal you actually meant your father and Sam _and _Morley's father, correct?"

"Correct."

"You fell pregnant at fifteen and gave birth when you were sixteen?"

"Yes."

"You were young."

"Indeed I was."

"And then you gave the baby up so that he could live on in another life."

"We did."

"Did you care for the child?"

"More than anything in the world."

"Did you know of the curse?"

There was a long pause, a hesitation, but when she finally replied all I heard was a faint, "Yes."

Any questions I had once been thinking to ask had flown out of my mind along with any thoughts that I had once been considering. As I looked into Amelie's eyes I saw regret, and sorrow, and love; and then I got it. Why she had taken such a liking to me in the first place. It wasn't because I was smart or because I was pretty, it wasn't because I was new to town or had good friends, and it wasn't any of the silly things I had considered once upon a time. It was because I was family.

"I need some air." I stood and walked passed Amelie, Sam and Morley and toward the door that I would never forget; the door that changed my life – but for better or for worse I wasn't yet sure.

The air in the next room was much cooler, and the silence was deafening as soon as you walked through the door. I hadn't taken much notice of my surroundings when we had been on our way to escaping, though I could recall the hospital scene and the doors and the halls and the confusing corridors that only helped you get lost.

But that was what I wanted, what I needed at that very moment. To get lost in hallways and trains of thought – to leave this place behind and come back later when everything seemed to be alright.

So I ran, faster than any vampire had ever charged at me. It felt like being in a tunnel, a tunnel so dark and dirty that any hope that you could hold on to was being thrust away every second. And just as you would in a never-ending tunnel, I kept running, and running, and running.

Running as far and as fast as I could manage, turning up different hallways and hurrying down others. But I knew that I couldn't go too fast, because I was pregnant.

And I stopped running to ensure that I did not fall to the ground.

Pregnant. How did it come to this? I was pregnant and I wasn't happy about it. Instead I was scared. I had always dreamed of the day where I would discover that I was going to be a mum, and finding Shane – the father of my child – was one of the best things that had ever happened to me.

But that dream...

I shuddered violently and leaned against a wall. I saw a flash of darkness, rotting walls and broken tables. I saw the ghostly halls and filthy chairs. The one thing I remember most about my little _visit _to this terrifying dream world was the fog. It had been thick and heavy, as if the house itself had a giant raincloud flying just above it to keep it unhappy. The fog could have swallowed me up whole had I not known to tell myself that it wasn't real.

And then there it was again, the fog. It flew around me in circles, and the next thing I knew I was sitting on the floor with my back pressed up against the wall and my arms wrapped around my legs. I could hear voices somewhere in the distance, and I was one hundred percent sure that the others had come to find me. Well, I'm sure this wasn't what they had hoped for, but I couldn't change it.

One thing I knew this time was that it _was_ real; whether the fog actually existed or not, that wasn't the problem. Everything that had happened in the past week had been real, just like what was happening right now was real.

I felt warm hands on my upper arms, and cold fingers on my forehead. I could see colour, but it was extremely blurry; mixed in with the fog. The contrast between the temperatures of vampires and humans was surprising, but I was too far away to notice all that much.

My last thought was that Sam was going to sacrifice himself for my baby whether he like it or not.

And then all went dark.


	21. Chapter 21

**Chapter 21 – Miranda**

**Claire's POV**

Okay, so maybe I'd been a little overdramatic when I said "and all went dark". It was just the power cutting out. The illumination that had allowed us to see was now gone. I heard voices mumbling in confusion, and then Amelie's voice overpowered them all.

"We must leave here. Something is going to happen and we are not going to be here when it does."

"What's going to happen?" Eve asked, but her voice dripped with sarcasm. "A vampire jumps out at us? News flash, we're not afraid of vampires."

"Maybe I can help to change your mind."

Everybody turned on their heels in a blur, hoping to find the source of the voice somewhere in the darkness. And we did, it was a female of about 30 years old. She held a cat in her arms, and guessing by the way her eyes turned red, I realised that my first judgement of her age had been wrong – she was a vampire; a vampire that seemed to radiate light.

"Speak of the devil," Shane muttered.

"And the devil comes," Michael finished.

"Oh boys, boys, boys, boys. Don't think of me as the devil, prejudice is not something that I agree with under any circumstances, let alone being discriminated against _myself_. I am here to help."

Her hair was a beautiful vibrant red, flowing down her back in silky waves. Her eyes were emerald green – the type of eyes that I had always dreamed of having myself – and her lips were full and red. She was like a rainbow with a dark personality, although, as she had just said, we were judging her before we knew her. She could have had a personality as bright as her hair.

"Well, I believe I have made myself clear on some sort of level. And before I begin, can I just say. Amelie Bishop! What a pleasure it is to meet you." She stood forward and held out her hand, Amelie just stared at her. "Very well. This must be Myrnin," she said, holding her hand out to him. He also stared at her, but he was more focused on her hand than her face.

"Do you realise that you have a bag of silver attached to your hand?"

"Yes I do. I put it there, in fact. It was a test, one that you have managed to pass – although you ruined the game for the rest of the people here." She turned and looked at 'the rest of the people here' and finished with her gaze on me. "Claire Danvers." And this time she didn't hold out her hand, instead she embraced me with open arms. "You are famous in my family, the first of the Danvers bloodline to be introduced to the vampire world after Sam Danvers and Amelie Bishop. Oh, I cannot tell you how many times I have read that book."

"What book?" It was a synchronised question asked by Shane, Amelie, Eve, Michael, Myrnin, me, and even Oliver.

"Why, you are all so observant," she noted, taken aback. "It is called 'The First of the Danvers Bloodline to be Introduced to the Vampire World After Sam Danvers and Amelie Bishop'. You have never heard of it?"

Her answer was silence and a few shaking heads. But before she could talk again, which seemed to be her specialty, I cut in and asked, "Em, what's your name?" And every face that stood close by seemed to fill with confusion at not wondering the same thing.

"I am Miranda," she stated. That name brought back so many memories of a sweet psychic girl that had died in an act of bravery to save her friends. Why were there so many people with the same name? It just got confusing.

"Anymore questions before I continue on with what I was saying?" And not giving anybody the chance to even attempt to cut in, Miranda continued, "I am here to help you. You probably wonder what for, and I shall now answer that unasked question."

She smiled and that smile lit up her already bright face, which made it really hard to look at her without going blind. She was the only person-slash-vampire that I had ever met who radiated light, had vivid red hair, emerald green eyes, and a smile that made her look like the sun.

"I, ladies and gentleman, am going to help you kill Samuel Danvers. But first," she paused and turned to Amelie, "Is there a restroom close by?"

We waited for Amelie and Miranda to return – Amelie had told us that it was not safe to be wandering around the halls with the only source of light in the building, and then we had argued back why is it okay for _her_ to be wandering around the halls with the only source of light, and then _she _argued back and then we argued back and then a full blown argument (which we made sure was kept to a quiet one-person-speaking-at-a-time) erupted, and eventually Amelie won. She had told us to wait here – where it was apparently safe – and said she and Miranda would be back soon.

And so they were.

"Those hallways are so very confusing, how is it that you learned them all? I don't think I would ever be able to..." We heard this before we even saw the glow of light in the corridor, but that was only because we were listening intently for them to get here.

Amelie interrupted her in the middle of a sentence and asked her, "Do you ever stop talking? I am becoming quite irritated at the fact that you seem to have plenty to say about every sort of situation."

"I do apologise," Miranda replied, "But you must admit that the restroom _was_ a disgrace!"

"And as I explained the first time you said that, that restroom was built – along with this entire building – a few millenniums ago."

Miranda heaved a very dramatic sigh, but before she could say whatever she had needed to take that giant breath to say, Amelie began talking again.

"Is everybody here?"

"No. Eve left to get a hot dog and Michael's away to work." It was Shane, clearly trying to shed some light on the situation.

I pushed down a giggle and replied, "Yes."

"Perfect," Amelie said, completely ignoring Shane's comment – which was probably for the best. "And I assume that everybody is ready, so let us take off on our journey home."

"The last time we 'took off on our journey home'," Michael began, "We ended up being bombarded by an extremely large group of vampires, how do we know it isn't going to end with the same result this time?"

"We just do."

"Wait!" Miranda said, "We cannot leave. My purpose here is to help you all kill Sam. If he is still alive, Claire cannot have her child."

"We will find another way," Amelie replied. "At this moment, we need to focus on escaping this disaster."

"Amelie's right," I said, walking over to stand next to Miranda. "You should all leave. Miranda and I will find and kill Sam and meet you later."

Shane came to stand beside me, "Count me in. I won't let _him _be the reason that wecan't have our baby."

Amelie made a noise of anger and frustration, but seemed to appreciate that we wouldn't change our mind. "I guess we should start searching then."

"You guys are leaving," I said, "I'm not putting anybody else in danger when they don't have good reasons." Although even before I said it, I knew that they would find some sort of excuse to join us.

Eve's was, "Your baby is my niece-slash-nephew, and besides, we always do cool stuff like this together." And if by cool stuff she meant killing vampires, I couldn't disagree with her.

Michael's was, "What she just said."

Myrnin's was, "I am a very important asset to these sorts of situations, and you need me. And I am also in need of a restroom."

Oliver's was, "Since everybody else is coming..."

And Eve interrupted him by saying, "You just want to see Sam die because you're jealous."

Oliver had no come back for that.

Amelie said, "I have the most leverage, although that is no excuse for why I should be coming. I have a town to run, and I sure cannot do it from inside this place."

"Amelie, I said you could go."

"Maybe so, but I won't be letting that weasel kill any child born of my bloodline. Let us go."

With that she sauntered ahead of the group, the heels that I had only just noticed she was wearing clicked rhythmically as she went, and her flowing hair seemed to glitter in the darkness.

As we followed, Oliver just stared.


	22. Chapter 22

**Chapter 22 – Reasons**

**Claire's POV**

As we travelled up and down different corridors, we silently chatted amongst ourselves – though Amelie stayed quiet as she strolled in front of us. I couldn't help wondering if I had annoyed her, because I hadn't meant to. Although, if annoying Amelie was what it took to save my baby, then that would be exactly what I would do; but it wasn't.

I walked slightly faster to reach her as she strolled quickly and gracefully through the hall. She didn't seem to notice me, or if she did she did well to ignore me, so I breathed a heavy sigh, meanwhile, keeping my eyes focused on the darkness ahead. I could see Amelie glance quickly at me from the corner of my eye and then face forward again.

"Yes?" she asked. The tone of her voice didn't hold any emotion.

"I just wanted to apologise for making you annoyed," I said simply, keeping my eyes glued to the darkness ahead. I didn't allow any emotion in my voice, just like Amelie, who stopped abruptly.

I turned to see if the others had noticed, but they were farther behind – along with our source of light.

"You have not made me annoyed," she told me, and her expression seemed genuinely surprised. "If anything, it would be _me_ who made _you_ annoyed. I never told you about our family connection on my own terms, so finding out this way – by watching me being _forced _to tell you – must annoy you drastically – and that is an understatement."

I had honestly thought she was annoyed at me, so now I was very confused and extremely glad. I shrugged and said, "I'm not annoyed, just slightly overwhelmed. I understand why you didn't want to tell me because I know how hard a situation it must have been."

"But I _did _want to tell you, Claire. For so long now, I've wanted to tell you of your ancestors, of the bloodline that has recently led to you. You must know that I did not believe of the curse, so I did not believe that a non-existent thing would affect you in any way. And even if I had, I had been intent on leaving my bloodline alone for the rest of eternity to save them from the pain that a curse like that would bring to them."

"So why didn't you kick me out of Morganville when I first came if you knew that I wouldn't be able to have a child if you were in my life?"

"As I said, I did not believe in the curse. I didn't even have the power to believe that you were my descendant. I always thought that there were possibilities – my father had been a keen scientist, and you are also. But I pushed any possibilities aside and allowed myself to be selfish, yet again, and allow you into my life – a Danvers of all people – and I would not change that for the world." She then glanced toward the floor and then back up at me again. "You probably don't feel the same way."

I didn't know what to say, but I knew exactly what to do. I stepped forward and wrapped my arms around her and buried my head into her shoulder. "I wouldn't change any of it. If I hadn't come to Morganville and been 'welcomed into the vampire world' I wouldn't have met Eve, or Shane, or Michael. I wouldn't have been able to have the opportunity of a lifetime to work for a crazy psychotic vampire – whom I now call a friend. I wouldn't have met Oliver and helped to make him into the... better person he is today – although don't ask me to define better because I'm still not entirely sure what it truly means. And I wouldn't have met _you_. You are like a second mother to me, and I thought that even before I knew we were actually related. You are amazing and I am glad to call you my family." I turned my head to look for the others and found them all watching us. "I'm glad to call you _all _my family."

One clap. Two claps. Three claps. Silence.

"How heart-warming." It was Sam, which meant he had found us; which meant that I would be killing him very shortly.

"Well, that's ironic, because I'm pretty sure you don't have a heart," Shane retorted, but his voice was stone cold.

"You are mistaken, boy. Everyone has a heart, it just depends whether it beats or not that classifies exactly what species they belong to. Anyway, that is not why I came here. I was wondering how on earth you managed to find light in such darkness..." He trailed off, seemingly discovering the answer himself. Then he whispered, "Miranda."

"Hello, Samuel."

"You two _know _each other?" Shane, Eve, Michael and I asked simultaneously.

"You are supposed to be dead," Sam stated simply as if it was just a normal thing you said every day.

"Let's just say I was let off lucky with a very-near-death experience. Now, I glow."

"How do you know each other exactly? What are we missing?" It was Shane; he seemed to be the only one there that wasn't freaked out the way that stops your voice box from working.

"You're here to kill me," Sam said, and when he received the reply of silence he knew he was correct. "Did you really think that some random person would just come to help you kill me? Every person has a reason for doing what they do, and her's is that she still hates me for betraying her a few centuries back."

"You slept with another woman and then tried to kill me when I confronted you about it! Let's just say I held a slight grudge."

"You were together?" I asked, still as freaked out as I was before but I must have gotten to the stage where you are _so _freaked out that words just seem to spill out of your mouth.

"Yes."

We all turned to face Amelie – everyone except from Sam and Miranda. She didn't look how anybody had seemed to think she would have, she was smiling in a way that showed her amusement of the whole situation.

"Oh, Miranda. That's just the type of man that Sam is, and I am sorry that you didn't work it out sooner. But this doesn't stop us from wanting your help, you can plunge the stake into his heart if you wish to, I don't think anybody would protest." She seemed to have broken whatever it was that had been flying between Sam and Miranda, and now had both of their full attentions.

"I'm sorry to disappoint you, but Miranda doesn't have the will power to kill her own creator."

I heard Amelie gasp at my side. Well, I certainly hadn't expected that.


	23. Chapter 23

**Chapter 23 – Confusion**

**Amelie's POV**

I didn't know how to react. He had created her and then he had tried to kill her? And, as Miranda had stated, there had been plenty drama in between both events. I didn't know what to think about what Sam had said, because I knew it was true. I didn't want to think like that but I couldn't stop myself. No matter what your creator does to you, no matter how terribly they treat you, no matter how deep your hatred for them may burn, it is impossible to fight the feeling that you have to protect them, unless they tell you not to, because you have to do exactly what they say.

I remembered the first ever person I turned. Her name was Sonya; she had been excluded from her family and lived in no specific place other than earth. She had always joked about it, her address being: Planet Earth, Milky-Way Galaxy, (and the postcode was her favourite part) SS0 NYA. For every day of her immortal life, Sonya had vowed to protect me under every circumstance that I would ever need protected in. She had dedicated her life to serving me and I loved it – because that was what we did. We found a person that had no one to live for and made them into the "better" version of themselves – that was what we always called it. And then they would be overly grateful and think that they owed you their life.

However, I never would have dreamed of hurting her, let alone killing her! How twisted his mind must have been when he tried to stake a vampire whom _he _had created. I understand it from the point of view that she had tried to kill him, but he obviously knew that she wouldn't have been able to go through with it – he just said so himself. And the fact that they had been in a relationship just added to the list of reasons why she wouldn't be able to kill him.

It would probably seem strange to any person as to how a vampire could know what their "science projects" are thinking and why they act the way they do, but to become a vampire they had to go through the same thing – and it is much worse when you are one of the first vampires to be created and you don't have a clue what is happening to you. Especially if you were created in a lab rather than in the "natural" way you could have been.

My thoughts were starting to part and I was beginning to see everything for what it was at the present moment, and at the present moment, everyone was staring at me – all except Sam and Miranda who continued to glance at each other every twenty seconds.

"Did you turn her before or after you got involved with her?" I asked.

Sam replied, "After."

"So you had feelings for him when he turned you?"

Miranda replied, "Yes."

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the smirk that twisted Sam's lips into his messed up version of a smile. "You are much too smug at this moment in time. You think you're clever? Hurting someone that _you _turned both physically and emotionally but knowing that she would never be able to do the same things to you because she was in love with you. You are pathetic, and you are a coward."

"I think we both know how incorrect that statement is, Amelie."

"Actually, I think we both know how _correct _that statement is, Sam. We both know just exactly what lengths you would go to just for your own selfish survival. Claire's child, for example, you're very great grandchild, will die because you cannot handle the fact that your life needs to end before another can start. Have you not lived a full and satisfactory enough life already that you cannot let it go for another to live?"

He looked at me in a way that showed he was considering my points, although that look and consideration withered terribly quickly and he had already justified his selfish actions to himself. "I have lived a very satisfying life in some aspects, but there is much more that I have to do, so many more things in which I have to s–" he was interrupted...

By me, "You have been alive for several thousand years and you can't spare _your_ life for the life of your own bloodline? _That _is cowardice, and _that_ is what will be the death of you, Samuel Danvers."

I didn't know what else to say, or what else to do, so I barged passed the person that I hated most out of the many people I knew – and had known – in this world and listened to the amused laugh that spilled from his mouth.

**Claire's POV**

None of us knew what to do. We either stayed where we were or followed Amelie as she passed Sam. If I hadn't been pregnant, I would have followed in Amelie's footsteps; shout at Sam as if my life depended on it, and then shove him out of the way as I walked forward. But I _was_ pregnant, and I couldn't risk him hurting the baby when it hadn't done anything wrong.

I didn't know what to call it. Not in the way of boy or girl, but the scientific explanations of the child growing inside of me. I knew that I was pregnant, which was more than I could have asked for in this current situation, but I didn't know how far on I was – weeks, maybe months? I didn't think it would be as much as months, but how was I supposed to know? How were any of us supposed to know anything? Everything that we were told seemed to be based on a pyramid of lies, and just like cheerleaders in a pyramid, it would eventually fall, leaving chaos behind for us to deal with.

I looked forward and watched Amelie walk away, not seeming to care whether or not we followed behind. I hadn't seen her that annoyed in a long time, and I wasn't sure exactly what boiled under her skin that made her hate Sam in such a manner; actually, that wasn't true when I thought about it. Along with hating him for the same reasons that I did, she also hated him for things that I had no knowledge of, or only partial knowledge of.

I turned from Amelie to Sam, and the smile on his face horrified me more than the thought of dying myself.


	24. Chapter 24

**Chapter 24 – Two Directions**

**Amelie's POV**

I walked along the corridor until I reached a dead end, and then I turned to my right and followed the corridor that led on. I continued in this sequence until I knew I was a fair distance from the others and sat on the floor in the complete darkness.

I thought of the smug smile that had been plastered on his face, the way he had looked at me as if he could read my mind – which he could, just not in any sort of magical way. It was just because he was thinking the exact same thing.

I could see in my companions' eyes the question that they were desperate to ask. He didn't understand why I hated him like I did. I was certain that they all despised him on some level for what he was aiming to do to the child that grew within Claire, but I had hated him for centuries. Although, if I told them that, they would question the 'centuries' part as I had supposedly locked him away before I ever had the chance to hate him, but I had hated him before I locked them all in the Crypt to suffer. I had hated them all.

He had taken Sonya from me and concealed her somewhere that I would never be able to find her, and even after years of torture, he wouldn't tell me where she was. In all this time, she would have starved, would have looked anywhere and everywhere for something to feed on.

Although, just before I had locked them all in the Crypt I had realised that he had _killed_ her. He hadn't taken her somewhere to emotionally wound me, but had instead killed her so that I was left unprotected. And even if he hadn't killed her – which I was sure he had – she would have probably committed suicide in her years of loneliness and misery. She had only been a newly made vampire at the time.

But he knew I always thought about what had happened to her, what he had done to her. Everything he did back then was done to hurt me, because it had been me who gave the child away when he wanted to keep him and try to protect him ourselves, it was me who had hurt him in the first place, and he had vowed to make my life misery for it. I hadn't gone with them to kill innocents; I had stayed as a servant to create their weapons. I had not been allowed to speak; I was always to stay silent. And when they suggested going up against his father and mine, I couldn't stay silent any longer. They beat me terribly, and I hated them for it to this day, but I _had _managed to lock them away. However, they still did not understand how a poor and helpless Amelie was able to defeat her entire group of people.

Well, I hadn't, not on my own. I had requested help from my father and his followers, and I still regretted it now as much as I had then. Sam hated me for that – for locking him and our people away for such a long length of time – and I hated him for everything he had done to me before that. When I had given our child away, my aim had been to make things better for both us and the child, though I had just ended up making it worse.

And now I wanted two answers, but I couldn't question him without being questioned myself. So I sat on the ground and considered my options.

**Claire's POV**

Amelie had long disappeared from my sight and now we all stood in silence. Looking from one person to the next, we could see that we each felt uncomfortable – uncomfortable definitely not being a strong enough word. Along with that, we were afraid; afraid for each other and for Amelie. Whatever had made Sam and Amelie hate each other so intently was obviously something terrible.

"Well, who is going to be the one to break the silence?" Sam queried, and then sighed. "I have really got to stop doing that." He shook his head. "Well? Will you go after her or shall I? I must warn you that if it is the latter the results will not be pretty."

I was the first to move forward so that I could hurry past him before he stopped me. The others followed, and Sam didn't make a move towards me or anyone else. I was incredibly thankful for that.

I started to run through the corridor. Amelie was nowhere in sight and I was beginning to worry. When I reached the end, I saw that there were two directions that Amelie could have gone in; right or left. I didn't know which way to journey so I waited for everyone to catch up.

Shane was just seconds behind me, and Michael was just seconds behind him. Eve had her back toward us but was travelling in our direction. She must have been checking that Sam was not following. I began to wonder where the vampires were, and then I turned to see Oliver, Myrnin and Miranda standing behind me, staring at me.

"Myrnin, you come with me and Shane down the corridor on the left. Oliver and Miranda, you go with Eve and Michael down the corridor on the right." They all nodded their heads at me and we separated quickly.

We hadn't come through this corridor on the way here, so we weren't surprised when we didn't recognise the main attributes that this hallway had. Instead of worrying, we ran.

Shane's hand seemed to find mine in the hurry and Myrnin was kind enough to stay at a quick human speed. We came to a total dead end containing only doors. And behind one of those doors was a person screaming, although we didn't know which door the sound came from.

"Well?" Myrnin asked.

"It might be Amelie," Shane noted.

"No, Amelie doesn't scream," Myrnin replied obviously.

"Everybody screams under horrifying circumstances," I stated.

"Well, what door must we open first?" Myrnin asked me, and I turned to Shane.

"You choose."

He pointed toward the only orange door that stood beside him, and said, "Whoever they are, they're definitely in here."

I took a step forward and was intercepted by Shane standing in front of me. "No, no, no, no. We don't have a clue what's behind that door, all we know is that it has the possibility to burst any person's eardrums. I'm going first and you are going to stay behind me with Myrnin."

"What if something bad is behind that door? What if it hurts you?"

"Then Myrnin will take care of you and the baby."

"Don't say that!" I ordered, almost yelling. However, the journey here had taken too much breath.

Shane stepped forward and took me into his arms. "I didn't mean it like that. I'm just being realistic."

"Why don't I just go first to save all this trouble?" It was Myrnin, and Shane and I nodded our heads and stood back.

Myrnin walked forward and swiftly opened the door...

...And met the fist of an extremely angry female. "Ouch!" He yelped before falling to the ground. He was still conscious, but the girl seemed to be very strong.

The anger drained out of her in seconds and she looked at Shane and I. We were standing in front of her with stricken expressions on our faces. "Who are you?" she asked us. And then she stepped forward, intrigued, and gasped. "You are human. You must go, both of you."

I stepped closer to her but she looked at me with bright red eyes, "Go! If you don't I won't be able to stop myself from killing you!"

I glanced at Myrnin, who looked as frightened as I felt. He would be okay, he was a vampire, and he couldn't be killed by an angry girl with strong fists. So Shane and I bolted, running as fast as we could from the starving vampire. We didn't scream, because we knew we weren't in danger. She didn't want to hurt us, so she would restrain herself until we were far enough away that she didn't smell our scent any longer.

It hadn't been Amelie – where Amelie had warm golden hair the girl was a silky brunette. Her eyes were blue (before they turned red from at the scent of our blood) and her skin was pale – no surprise there, she was a vampire. It was clear that she hadn't fed in for a long period of time, so she needed blood; lots of it. And we were going to help her get it, just not from our veins.

But first we were going to follow the route that the others had taken because I was now certain that Amelie took the same path. And she was going to tell us exactly what Sam had done to her in the past to make her hate him so much.


	25. Chapter 25

**Chapter 25 – Behind the Orange Door**

**Oliver's POV**

After Claire gave her commands, we set off for the corridor to the right. Miranda and I had to keep at a human speed as we ran through the corridor, which was extremely inconvenient. However, Eve and Michael were both running much faster than they probably should have.

They were holding hands, and I had no doubt that Claire and Shane were doing the same thing as we strayed from them. We didn't know where we were going, only Amelie had any long term experience that could help with navigating this stupid captivity centre, but she wasn't with us and that was why we were travelling at such a fast speed... and I had to stop myself from laughing bitterly at that thought. This was perhaps the slowest running pace that I had used in years, and all I could think about was going at a quicker pace so that we could save Amelie and get out of here.

The corridor came to a stop and there were, yet again, another two directions to choose from. "Well?" I asked the humans, Miranda didn't seem to be doing anything besides keeping up with us. Honestly, I was surprised she followed in the first place. "Which way?"

It was Michael who replied, "If Amelie did come this way, she would have kept turning to the right – well, that's what I would have done."

He was quite clever, Michael. They all were, in fact. For such young adults they had experienced more than I did for thirty-odd years as a human. So basically, being stuck with them as my only companions didn't bother me as much as it would have a year or so ago. But being stuck with Miranda – another of Sam's lovers' – bothered me more than it would have being locked in an extremely miniature room with Myrnin for a long while – and that says something.

Sam's lover...

I shivered at the thought, Amelie and _him_. Even Sam Glass would have been better than this new psychotic one that wanted to destroy her. They had been parents once upon a time, and they had given the child up so that the child could live a safe and happy life. They had been there for each other through thick and thin. And Amelie seemed to despise him more than she had me when I had first moved to Morganville and fought to take control of her town. It didn't make any sense!

Another end in the corridor but there was only one way that you could turn, and that was left. So we followed on the same path and in the far distance of the never-ending corridor was a silhouette that sat on the floor with their back up against the wall. They were still and silent and I knew instantly that it was Amelie; only she could sit as motionless as that.

I couldn't stop myself from vamping out and ended up staring down at Amelie three seconds later while the rest were still making their way along the corridor. She didn't see me at first, so I must have travelled in complete silence, although, when I stepped forward, she heard me and looked up. The only part of her that I could see without Miranda lighting my way was her glowing golden hair that fell down passed her shoulders. The darkness swallowed the rest of her.

"Oliver," she said before her arms wrapped around my shoulders.

"Amelie, what were you doing?"

"Thinking."

"About what?"

"About everything," she said, and after pulling back from me, she looked over to where the others were seconds from catching up.

"Amelie!" Michael and Eve exclaimed.

"Hello." She looked behind them and her brow furrowed. "May I ask where the other three are?"

Eve said, "We sort of split up to look for you, there were two ways you could have gone."

"Of course. Well, we should probably head back their way to reassure them that I am safe. No doubt Claire will be worrying."

And with that she started to saunter back the way that we had all just come. I decided that it was probably best to follow straight away this time to save everything ending up the way it had this time.

**Claire's POV**

We ran at top speed and stumbled quite a few times on the way, but never once did either of us fall. I kept thinking of the starving vampire girl who wanted to save humans even when she needed blood more than my baby needed Sam to die, because that could wait a bit longer.

We reached the first separation point and continued the way the others had gone. It wasn't long before we bumped into Amelie.

"Amelie!" I bellowed and threw my arms around her neck, and then I realised that I had basically just offered her to slide her fangs into my neck and suck every ounce of blood from my body, and even when I knew that she wouldn't even consider doing that I couldn't help stepping back. Her face was concerned.

"Where is Myrnin?"

"Yeah, about that..." I stopped and looked at everybody standing there – apart from Shane who stood beside me. "Myrnin was sort of attacked by a hungry bloodsucking vampire. She didn't seem mean though, just very hungry. And she let us go before she hurt us."

"Who is she?" Amelie's face had taken on an edge of worried strictness.

"We don't know. She asked us that very same question and then stepped forward and caught the scent of our blood and ordered us to run. So we ran."

"We need to go back for Myrnin," Amelie stated.

"Yes I know, but we need to get blood for the starving vampire first."

"Don't worry about that, dear. Just worry about finding Myrnin."

I turned on my heels and we all started walking back toward Myrnin and the starving vampire.

**Amelie's POV**

I had done enough walking to do me a lifetime, but now there was purpose. We were finally getting out of here – me, Claire, Oliver, Myrnin, Shane, Michael, Eve, and maybe even Miranda if I was in a good mood – after all of our attempts at escape, this would be the time that it worked.

I knew that there was no 'choose which direction to go next' sign at the end of this hall, so I just kept going. When I eventually did reach the end there was no sign of stress or struggle, in fact, it seemed peaceful.

I turned to give Claire a questioning look and she pointed toward the door on the right. It was bright orange, different from every other door that existed in this horrifying place, all of which were brown. I stepped forward and felt the feeling of dread file its way into my emotions after seeing the worried faces of the people surrounding me – both vampire and human alike.

Sighing heavily, I placed my hand on the door knob in front of me and turned the handle...

... And Myrnin was thrown out at me. I quickly stood aside to ensure that I wasn't knocked down as Myrnin plummeted toward me. I turned and triggered the invisible switch which opened the door to the silver stake that we had put there in case of emergencies – emergencies like our fathers' returning home. After grabbing the stake, I turned back and got into the position that was needed to plunge the stake into a vampire's heart.

A silhouette formed, turning into a fully figured person and as my arm flew forward to kill the girl, my grip on the silver stake loosened and the silver stake fell out of my hand and to the floor.

I recognised those gorgeous green eyes, the green eyes that no one had had the heart to appreciate. I recognised that red hair, as bright as the sunset and glowing as the day. I recognised the way her suddenly red eyes contrasted with the porcelain white of her face. "Sonya?" I whispered, before stumbling forward and embracing her with the love that I had shown her many years ago.


	26. Chapter 26

**Chapter 26 –The Reunion**

**Amelie's POV**

"Amelie?"

"Sonya, it's really you," I whispered. My voice sounded muffled as my forehead rested on her shoulder.

"It's really me." She sighed heavily and whimpered slightly. "I'm hungry."

"I know, Sonya, but you have to stay strong. I heard what you did for Claire and Shane, which was amazing. We will get you blood very shortly, I promise, but for now you will need to go without." And just as I had intended, Sonya relaxed in my arms. What the creator says, the created does. Some creators sometimes use it for their own personal purposes, the selfish vampires that were raised in disastrous environments and took advantage of all the _perks_, but the likes of me didn't enjoy making other people do things for their own use. However, in cases such as this, we need to help the ones that we previously created. If I tell her to stay strong and not crave for blood, she will stay strong, and she will no longer need blood until the craving becomes stronger than any sort of compulsion could be.

"Who are Claire and Shane?" she asked, and I stepped back and turned to where they stood.

"Sonya, meet my friends. Claire, Shane, Eve, Michael, Myrnin and Oliver, meet Sonya. She was the first person that I ever turned into a vampire, many hundreds of centuries ago, although I did not believe that she was still alive. In fact, I believed that she had been murdered by Sam."

"Is he here?" Sonya instantly asked, and she suddenly became nervous. Well, of course she did! Sam had kidnapped her, he hadn't killed her, but he had hidden her somewhere that I would never have thought to look...

The place we had grown up; the place that we wanted no memories of.

I hesitated before replying, "Yes, he is. But everything will be okay; I will not let him touch you."

"He might kidnap me again."

"As I said, I will not let him touch you. I just found you again, I will not lose you so soon after."

"Well, well, well." It was Sam, and I did not dare let my gaze stray from Sonya's emerald green eyes. "I guess I arrived in the spit of time. So, we all found Amelie, did we? And now Amelie has found her dear Sonya. Oh, this is a very emotional reunion, I must say."

Without turning, I replied, "What are you going to do, Sam? You have already done everything you can."

"Do you really believe that?" And we both knew that I didn't. He could be planning to kill Sonya in front of my eyes just after I had found her (though I would not allow that) or he could take any another of my loved ones. And when that thought entered my mind, I turned quickly on my heels to ensure that everybody else was still safe and alive.

There was Oliver and Myrnin and Miranda – whom I had rudely forgotten to introduce to Sonya – and there was Eve and Shane and Michael and... Where was Claire? She had been there just two minutes before. Panic flooded my body faster than a tsunami would fill a very small house. I looked at Sam and saw that he held Claire roughly by the arm and had a knife in his left hand. Claire tried to break free from his grip, but her struggling wasn't strong enough compared to a vampire's strength.

I noticed Shane follow my eyes, and he gasped when he found their destination. "Claire..."

"Let her go!" I yelled with a fierce glint in my eyes. "Tell me what you want and I will see what I can do, but for now you must let her go!"

"I'm sorry, dear, but what I want is not up for negotiation. What I want is to make your life misery, your present life rather than your future, and I need this young girl to complete the task."

"What task?" Claire asked. "What sort of task needs someone to die?"

"You mistake what I say, young girl. I do not intend to kill you, and I wish that I did not have to hurt you as you seem a delightful and intelligent young girl. Nonetheless, Amelie just used what we call the beauty of 'creator's compulsion' to take away the hunger that writhes inside of Sonya." He turned to Sonya with an evil smile that only someone with his dreadfully cold mind could muster and said, "But I did not starve you for so long just to watch Amelie calm the craving. I intended not for you to suffer but for you to make _my_ life easier." He lifted the knife and cut Claire's neck, deep enough that she screamed and blood spilled from the wound.

And then Claire was released as Sam fell to the ground. Shane now stood in Sam's place. He was cradling a baseball bat that I had no knowledge of seeing in the past. He threw the bat to the ground and took Claire into his arms, rocking her back and forth as she shed a few tears.

Meanwhile, I turned to Sonya. Her eyes had gone from an amazing emerald green to a deep and fiery red that was as bright as her hair.

"Sonya, don't think about the blood. Think about me!" I tried to catch her red eyes but she was staring straight at Claire. And then she started to walk forward. "Sonya, listen to me. You don't have to do this. You can cope. I taught you that so very long ago, do you remember?" But even tugging at the heartstrings wasn't enough to put her feeling of starvation to rest.

Sam laughed as he rose from the ground and walked toward Sonya, meanwhile mocking me. "Amelie, you must know that when a vampire is hungry, the scent of blood is much stronger than any compulsion that could be used."

I ignored what he was saying and continued to plead with Sonya. "When we get out of here, which won't be long, you will have as many blood bags as you wish. I will even allow you a one-night human spree. You just have to _stop_."

I seemed to have gotten through to her slightly as her expression changed from determined to confused. The red in her eyes was fading back to the beautiful green that had first brought her to my attention.

"What is going on?" Sam demanded, his brow was furrowed and his arms crossed. He uncrossed them so that he could point directly at Sonya. "Compulsion is not strong enough to compete with the cravings of blood."

Sonya turned to him and snarled at him, showing fang. "Compulsion may not be stronger than hunger, but there is a saying. It goes a bit like this, 'love can conquer all!" She zoomed away from all of us and grabbed the silver stake. Then before any of us could comprehend what she had just done, Sonya stabbed Sam directly in the heart.

He screamed in pain and collapsed to the floor, knowing that he had just lost at his own game.

Everyone stared speechlessly as Sonya brushed the imaginary dirt off of her trousers and clapped her hands together like one might do after building a house. I hadn't noticed what she was wearing before, but she seemed to be in a gothic outfit, all black and white and red. Her bright red fake nails were obvious when she was clapping her hands together.

"So," She began as she looked up at her small audience, "Are we getting out of here or what? I am _starving_, and I can only fend off my craving for so long when there is a bleeding girl standing only a few feet away." She looked at Eve and smiled, "Nice outfit."

Eve smiled back and replied, "I was just thinking the same thing."

Sonya held out her hand and said, "I'm Sonya Rosser, well, Sonya Bishop really because I changed my surname when I was turned."

"Rosser?" Eve asked.

"Yeah. And you're either Claire, Eve or... Yeah, you're either Claire or Eve. So which are you?"

"I'm Eve Rosser, well, Eve Glass really because I changed my surname when I got married.

"Rosser?" Sonya asked, and then a smile of recognition spread across her face.

"I was starting to wonder how you were both so similar," Claire remarked, but I could tell that she was absolutely serious because it was the truth.

"Did you know that we were related?" Eve asked me.

"I didn't even know that her last name was Rosser, I just always thought of her as Sonya Bishop, although now that I think about it Rosser suits you so much more."

We all laughed – whether it was relief, or happiness, or the thought of going home, we laughed. It felt normal, even when everything around us was so wild.

"Really guys," Sonya interrupted when she herself stopped laughing, "It's not long now before I totally vamp out and chop all your heads off."

She was most definitely a Rosser, and honestly, I couldn't believe that I hadn't thought like that before. I must say, I had always thought that Eve reminded me of someone, but I had never considered Sonya.

"Alright then, everybody. Let's go home!"

"Oh, and before we do, who are you?" She asked Miranda, and I looked over at her to see the heartbroken expression on her face. She obviously hadn't been laughing, she had probably been staring in shock as her creator had a silver stake plunged into his heart.

Myrnin was the first to speak up, "This is Miranda." He walked over to where she stood and took both of her hands into his. "I am extremely sorry for what happened to Sam, but you know as well as we do that it was for the best."

She looked up at Myrnin with a smile wider than any smile I had ever seen. She nodded her head and replied, "Yes. He was a monster, and even when I believed it myself, he had a hold over me. When he's dead, that hold will most certainly be gone." Myrnin was obviously thinking the same thing as I was – it wasn't as easy as that – but he just looked back at her with a kind and comforting smile.

"Are we going now?" I asked, and my reply was a loud chorus of 'yeah' and 'woo.'

We all cheered and applauded as we made our way – hurriedly – through the corridors that led to the exit. Every vampire we passed on our way looked at us with faces of confusion – both at the fact that we had vampire light source and the fact that we all looked so happy at this very unhappy time – and we told them about the inopportune predicament that Sam had unfortunately gotten himself in to.

And when we said this, they darted for the direction we had come from.

I couldn't remember ever being this happy, or more to the point, I couldn't remember ever being this unsophisticated and casual. And I have to say, I was enjoying it!


	27. Chapter 27

**Chapter 27 – Back to Morganville**

**Claire's POV**

When we got to the exit, I was blinded by the bright light that instantly flooded every cell of my body. The contrast between dark hallways and bright meadows was extraordinary.

The flowers that lay throughout the field were beautifully coloured – blues and pinks and purples and greens – and the mixture of green grass and distant blue sky made the scene before my eyes even more beautiful.

When I turned, I discovered that we had been held hostage in a hill, nonetheless. It sounded ridiculous, but it was true, and it was smart. Who would think to look in a meadow, let alone a _hill_? The door handle was visible; however, it was only visible if you knew it was there. We stood in silence, listening intently to the click of the door as it locked behind us.

"Where are we?" Shane asked. He didn't seem to be admiring the gorgeous surroundings as much as he should have been but I understood the need to get home and as far away from here as possible.

"It seems to me like we are in a meadow of some sort," Myrnin stated, and I couldn't help but laugh.

Shane just looked irritated. "Really? Who would have thought?" He sighed and turned to Amelie. "Where are we?"

"We are in Morganville. Well, not _in_ Morganville as much as on the outskirts. My father made it so that where you need or want to be when you leave, you will go."

"But we're not in a desert."

"It just seems that way. Give it a few minutes and the effects of the gas will wear off."

"What gas?" I asked.

"The gas that lingers throughout the laboratories and the corridors to create an unreal surrounding when you leave, although, it does not affect those who know it is there. I would have told you, but it would have made no difference," and then she added in a quieter voice, "Also, I had forgotten that particular detail."

"So we're stuck here?" Shane moaned.

"No, the effects should wear off soon enough. Until then, I am standing in a desert as you all stand in a meadow. I know where I'm going, so let's be on our way."

"Then, where is the location of the Crypt if you can exit to anywhere?" Michael asked.

"If you wanted to find the Crypt, which I personally never have, then you would know exactly where to go." And she finished there, making her answer sound slightly like a riddle.

As we walked on, all I could see was a large expanse of grass. It was extremely difficult to resist the temptation to lie down and make grass angels – but I had to remember that it would be the equal of lying on the desert floor and getting sand in your hair and all over your clothes. I turned around and watched Sonya and Eve conversing. Sonya's eyes reminded me of the fantastic green meadow, and her hair was like a bright red flower. She was really pretty, even after being locked in a single room for centuries.

I suddenly felt dizzy, and I had to hold on to Shane to keep my balance. He panicked and quickly called over to Amelie.

"The gas effect is just wearing off; she will be okay in a few seconds." And just like she said, a few seconds later I felt perfectly normal – apart from the fact that I had gone from standing in a meadow to standing in a desert.

"There's the Morganville sign," I stated as we continued to walk the way that Amelie had led us. "We're actually going home!"

Shane's hand found my shoulder and I felt him lean his weight on me. I turned to see Eve and Sonya leaning on each other as well. Michael was beside Myrnin and Oliver. They weren't leaning on anyone so they lost their balance and all fell to the ground, and I couldn't help laughing when they created a minute snow storm and ended up with sand covering them from head to toe.

"There's Morganville!" everybody shouted when the effect wore off.

I was totally excited. That was our home, and we were going back.

"What's that?" Eve asked as she furrowed her brow to get a closer look at the flashing lights ahead.

"That's a police car," I answered, feeling suddenly worried. What had happened while we were gone?

"We should hurry."

We reached the entrance to Morganville in no time and chaos lay in our wake. There were crowds of people shouting and holding signs painted with the Founder logo. When someone noticed us, the news travelled like a forest fire. Soon enough, we had all eyes on us and the silence surrounded us like a blanket.

Twenty seconds later the crowd broke into applause and the only thing that I could make out were the people screaming, "The founder's back, the founder's back!"

We had a look around and found Monica Morrell standing beside a policeman. We walked over to where they stood.

"Where the hell have you all been? This town has been in chaos for the past ten days!" Monica's face was filled with frustration.

"Where is Hannah?" Amelie asked her, ignoring her rant.

Monica didn't even bother to argue and seemed to give up with a heavy sigh. "She was making a phone call, I don't know why or what for but chances are it had something to do with your _disappearance_." Her voice dripped of sarcasm with her last word.

"If you wish to know, Little Miss Perfect, I was possessed. If you would rather have your city being run by an ancient psychotic vampire, I guess that's your choice. Now I need to know exactly where Hannah is, she should have made sure that this city was kept in some sort of order."

"Amelie! Claire! Myrnin! You're all back!" It was Hannah, and she held a phone to her ear. As her pace increased, it looked as though she was finishing a conversation. When she reached us, she put the phone in her pocket. "What happened to you guys? One minute you were asking Travis and Joe if we could keep you up to date with any information that we find, and then I decide to visit the Glass House and find it empty!"

"It's a really long story..." I started, but I was interrupted.

"You can tell me all about it later as I see that you found Amelie. Let me guess, that's probably a really long story, too? Well, why don't we get you all home first, you've probably missed it."

"Hannah?" Eve asked.

"Yes, Eve?"

"Why is there a police car at the Morganville entrance?"

"Oh right, yeah. Give me a second." She walked over and quickly said something to the policeman. He nodded his head sharply, turned to smile at us and slid into his police car to take off down the long road. Hannah turned and walked back to us, "Now that that is dealt with, who's this new one?" she asked, staring straight at Sonya.

"I'm Sonya," she replied simply and shook the hand that Hannah had held out to her.

"Care to elaborate?" Hannah joked, but to her surprise she got an answer.

"Sonya Rosser, I'm related to Eve. I was Amelie's first vampire creation."

"Wow, that's big." She took a deep breath. "Well, I'm pretty sure I've got lots to catch up on. Come on; let's get you all to the Glass House."

We pushed through the crowd of gawking faces and made our way back to Lot Street, back home.


	28. Chapter 28

**Chapter 28 – Pregnancy Tests**

**Shane's POV**

We arrived home in no time, and when we got there it was like we'd never left. Everything looked just as it had before we left for the TPU library and, more importantly, it still smelled of chilli.

"Home sweet home," I sighed and melted into the sofa when we reached the living room. Claire joined me and together we took up the entire couch.

Michael and Eve sat in Michael's chair and the vampires sat at the table hidden away at the side of the room.

"So what did I miss?" Hannah asked us all. She was standing beside the sofa and smiling down at Claire.

"Um, well... I'm, well, I'm..."

"Claire's pregnant!" Eve said, and Hannah's eyes suddenly widened.

"Wow... How far gone?"

"That specific detail is not one that we have unfortunately," Myrnin said as he observed his hands.

"That's a good point," I said, "I'll run to the chemist and get a pregnancy test."

"You really don't need to do that..." Claire replied, but I didn't let her finish.

"We need to know Claire. We need to be prepared."

She nodded her head and smiled up at me, "Be careful."

"I will."

We were in Morganville after all.

**Claire's POV**

I didn't know whether he believed that the smile was real or if he had just become a very good actor during the time that we had been away. It didn't matter though; he didn't confront me about it. He just left.

"Oh, this is getting exciting!" Miranda squealed and waved her hands in the air.

"I didn't notice that one, I must admit," Hannah said quietly to me, "Who is she?"

"Miranda."

"And Miranda is?"

"It's complicated – more like the ending of a book rather than the summary."

She nodded her head in understanding and smiled over at Miranda.

"So? What else happened while you guys were away?"

"Well, to summarise it," I said, "Amelie was possessed and we went to the TPU library to get a lead on where she was only to be knocked out and have Myrnin end up possessed also. We were locked in a Crypt for three days – three of which I was unconscious – and when we eventually _did _escape, we brawled with the vampires holding us captive. We discovered I was pregnant when I collapsed after agreeing to allow the head vampire, Sam – who just so happened to be my distant relative, along with Amelie – to turn me into a vampire, and since then we have added two more people to our group. Thankfully, we got home safely."

Hannah looked extremely taken aback, but she took all of the information in her stride as she replied with a soft, "Huh. Well, you guys hungry?"

"I am starving!" Shane exclaimed as he slammed the front door behind him.

"That was fast," I said after glancing at the clock. He had only left three minutes ago.

"Well, as I said I would do, I _ran_ to the chemist." And as if to prove it he entered the living room panting vigorously with sweat matting his forehead.

"This is really important to you, isn't it?" I asked him.

"Of course it is. It's important to both of us, isn't it?"

I only hesitated slightly before answering, "Of course!"

A big smile spread across his face and his eyes gleamed with joy. I envied him for that, for his joy and his happiness. He hadn't seen my dreams of the future, the good or the bad.

The good one had been completely amazing, but the bad one, it was safe to say, had scared the hell out of me. It hadn't just been a little darker; it had been colder, and more confined. Trying to breathe had been a task that needed every ounce of effort to complete.

"What are we waiting for? Let's go!" He held out a hand, and after a few seconds I took it. We waved goodbye to all of the smiling faces in the living room – well, Oliver wasn't smiling as much as glaring – and we walked up the stairs.

"Are you ready?" he asked me when we stood outside the bathroom door.

I tried to say yes but I couldn't just lie to him, and I couldn't go inside yet either.

"Can we wait a little longer? Spend a little time together? We haven't really had much time together with everything that's been going on lately."

He seemed to reanalyse my facial features and sensed my unease. "Of course, whatever you want. My room or yours?"

I raised my eyebrows at him and watched as his smile returned to his face. "My room isn't _that_ bad!" he exclaimed.

"No, but my room is so much better." I turned on my heels and sauntered over to my bedroom door, nudging it open with my shoulder when I reached it.

Nothing had changed in here either, and I was starting to regret not making my bed the day that Amelie went missing. I quickly scampered over to it and grabbed the top corners of the covers so that I could pull them up, but before I could I heard a cough behind me.

I turned around slowly with a guilty expression on my face just to see the cheeky smile on Shane's.

"Much better, is it?"

"It was a busy day..."

He walked slowly forward, the mischievous smile refusing to leave his phizog, and repeated, "Tut, tut, tut."

He stopped directly in front of me and his expression suddenly changed from bold to concern. "You are okay with our current... situation?"

"Ye..."

"Don't just say what somebody else in your situation would say, or what you think I want to hear. Say what _you _would say. What are you thinking?"

I sighed and lowered my gaze to his chest. I didn't want to see his disappointed expression when I told him what I was thinking, because I _was _going to tell him. Right now.

"In the dreams that I got when I collapsed, there were two options. One was great; it was brilliant, in fact. I was happy, _we _were happy."

"Are we not happy now?"

"That's not what I'm saying," I said, and I walked over to the space that the cot had been sitting in the dream. "It had started in a black room, and when I turned, the front door of the Glass House was there. I walked inside and through the corridor, just like I normally would have, and then Eve came in after me and slammed the door behind her. Someone had started to cry and Eve had apologised over and over again for not thinking. I, the future me, had walked up the stairs and into this very room. The walls had been painted yellow and her cot had been sitting right here." I pointed to where I was standing.

"Her?"

"We had a girl, and she was called Alyssa, although we called her Lissa for short. She was beautiful." I walked back over to him and continued speaking. "She had your eyes, your big brown eyes and perfectly shaped face. And she had my auburn hair and bright red cheeks. She had fit in my arms perfectly, and you had stood with us as she said her first words." I took his hands in mine. When I looked up, his smile seemed to match my excitement, and I thought I spotted a small tear in the corner of his eye. But the excitement drained out of me as I thought about the other option.

"Then it all changed. I was back to standing in the dark room, and I turned to see the same door. I walked through it to get back to the baby, to get back to you, but it was different." I released his hands and turned to walk over to the window. I stared at the tree that stood outside, the tree that I had stared at so many times in the past, the tree that had always been too far away to climb down. "It was cold, ice cold, and everything had been broken. There was no familiarity to the house, as if a curse had been placed on it. Eve and Michael had run down the stairs when the phone rang as if they had been waiting right at the top for that very moment, that very phone call. The person on the other end of the phone had told them that we were dead, that our child..." A tear threatened to escape, and I let it fall. "She was stillborn."

I hadn't realised that Shane had moved until I felt his arms wrap around me. "It won't be like that, I won't let it be. The child will be born and we will live, we will be the happiest of families. It will be even more perfect than the perfect dream you had, I promise."

I smiled and turned to look at him. "I hope so."

He smiled back at me and bent down to give me the most amazing and heart-warming kiss of all time.

We left the bedroom twenty minutes later and walked down the hall to the bathroom. He handed me the pregnancy test and I accepted it with certainty. I was glad that I hadn't said yes the first time, I hadn't been ready. But I was now.

I smiled at Shane and opened the bathroom door, "I'll be two minutes, and I would really appreciate it if you wouldn't stand so close to the door."

I closed the door behind me and took a deep breath.

It would be even more perfect than the perfect dream I'd had, I repeated to myself.

**Eve's POV**

It was boring sitting in silence with a bunch of old vampires _and _the mayor. It wasn't so bad having Michael there, but I couldn't even kiss him without being looked at weirdly. We were married, for goodness sake! But being as young as we were, it still seemed really strange.

It took half an hour for Claire and Shane to finally come back down the stairs. In that amount of time there had been about three conversations around here that had each lasted about five minutes each. Claire and Shane hadn't had much time together for the past while – with Claire passing out and all – so I didn't judge them for being so long. I kept imagining them coming down the stairs with looks of glee on their faces and smiles that could light up an entire room. Instead I got a stricken Claire and a worried Shane. That wasn't good at all.

"What's wrong?" Amelie asked before I even got the chance.

"I'm seven months gone," Claire said, "I'm seven months gone and I'm still as thin as I was seven months ago!"

I didn't know what to do, but I stood up and walked around the sofa. I knew that something was wrong, and I could tell that that's what most of the others in the room had registered themselves. The vampires had also gotten up and Hannah now stood beside Amelie. They were both looking at Claire with concerned expressions – although it was obvious that where Amelie knew what was happening, Hannah didn't.

"The baby was supposed to grow to the size that it should have been after Sonya killed Sam," Amelie said.

"But it hasn't!" Claire yelled, "And there is only one reason that it hasn't! Sam isn't dead! He's still _very much _alive! I can't get a freaking abortion to save me and Shane, so we are well and truly screwed! In three months time, you will all be visiting our joint funeral. So start shopping, I expect you all to be in your best dresses or shirt and ties." Her knees seemed to buckle under her, but she didn't try to hold on to anything as she fell. She didn't move from the ground, instead she sat still and cried.


	29. Chapter 29

**Chapter 29 – Preparations**

**Claire's POV**

When I found out that I was seven weeks gone, I relied on my anger to keep me upright. My anger toward Sam and Morley, toward this whole messed up situation, toward anybody that got in my way, which unfortunately turned out to be Amelie.

After my rant, the anger that I had held so dear flooded out of me like a waterfall. I fell to the floor, not bothering to grab for something. I didn't want to use my energy on something as stupid as standing; I wanted to use my energy to kill Sam.

I looked up at the bodies crowding around me and smiled a wicked smile that I didn't know I was even capable of.

"I have an idea."

Everyone was looking at me with worried expressions, but they seemed to be intrigued all the same.

Sam would die, and not just so that I lived, not just so that Shane lived. Sam would die because he had lived too many torturous years murdering people, hurting people. He deserved to die, and my baby deserved to live.

I sat on the sofa in the middle of a deserted living room. The silence engulfed me like a balloon, and I accepted its comfort with another wicked smile.

I knew that there was a strong possibility that I would regret what we were all about to do, but at this moment, only one thing mattered.

I stood up and walked over to the door. I didn't know what I would see when I opened it, it depended on how much faith people had in Amelie – and I was guessing, more like hoping, that it would be a lot.

Taking a deep breath, I opened the door wide. There was an army of vampires and humans standing on the street. It was a perfect amount, and I smiled at Shane as he gave me a thumbs up.

"Is everyone ready?" I asked, and Amelie nodded. She, Myrnin and Oliver were the only ones that could hear me; I hadn't shouted loud enough for the humans, and the other vampires weren't paying attention.

I took a deep breath before stepping out of the house and closing the door behind me. I walked down the stairs and down the path to reach Amelie. She smiled at me and asked, "The real question is, are you ready?"

"As ready as I'll ever be, I guess."

After nodding her appreciation, she stepped forward. "Ladies and gentlemen," she spoke in her queenly voice. "We thank you for being here today, but this threat that we told you of is not something that should be dealt with lightly.

"There are weapons for you all in the Elders' Council Building where we will be heading to very shortly. I will ask you to be patient as we ensure everything is prepared here."

She turned to me, and an expression of concern furrowed her features. "Claire, you are still seven months pregnant, even if you don't look it. You must remember that."

"I will, Amelie. I promise."

She nodded her head and wrapped her arms around me quickly before turning back to her audience. "Can everybody make their way to the Elders' Council Building? I will meet you all there."

They began to make their way along the road just as Amelie had asked, and after just about two minutes, the once busy road was almost completely deserted.

"Who will be staying with Claire?" Amelie asked the others who hadn't yet left.

"I will," Shane said and came to stand beside me.

"No, you won't," I told him firmly. He began to argue but I looked him straight in the eye and said, "You are one of the best fighters in Morganville, and that includes the vampires. I'm not keeping you here just so that I have company."

"I'll stay," Eve said, "I'm not that good a fighter, and I am very good company!"

I started to say no, but Amelie interrupted me before I even started. "That is a very good idea. Well, now that that's sorted, I guess the rest of us should be on our way."

**Shane's POV**

It didn't take long to get to the Elders' Council Building from the Glass House. Well, I honestly didn't realise that we were there until Amelie started talking. I was too busy thinking.

I was worried about Claire, she hadn't been acting like herself for the past few days, but she'd been worst today. Her eyes had been filled with anger and a need for revenge, and it honestly scared me – although, I wouldn't admit that to anyone.

Now that we were at the Elders' Council building, I realised how much I really didn't want to be here. I wanted to be at home, with Claire. If this didn't go to plan, then we were both dead. I wanted to be with her for the remaining time that we had together, but I knew she wouldn't let me. I didn't want to be fighting a war that we might not even win – and thinking that I realised that Claire wasn't the only one who had changed. I used to love fighting; I used to live for the fight. Just shows what being locked in a Crypt for three days with an unconscious wife can do to you.

We entered the building and found a crowd of vampires and humans standing in the hall. They seemed to part as we walked through.

"Have we all got weapons?" Amelie asked, and everyone nodded in response, "I guess we're ready then. Oliver, keep an eye out. They should be here shortly."

**Eve's POV**

I sat and stared at a silent Claire. Being locked in a Crypt for three days and collapsing a number of times seemed to have had a bad effect on her. I offered to get her some chilli and she just shook her head. I offered to get her a glass of water and she stared at me as if I was crazy. I didn't know how to get through to her, so I just stared at her, hoping that if I stared enough she would eventually grow uncomfortable and look up.

That didn't exactly go to plan; she just stared at the ground with a blank expression on her face.

"Want to play truth or dare? Or charades? Or... Something?"

She looked up at me and smiled, not the fake smile that she had been the past few days, but an actual smile.

I couldn't help but smile back, seeing her happy again – or as happy as she could be at this moment in time – was the best thing in the world.

"Charades? Truth or dare? Something else? What made you smile, huh?"

"You. _You_ made me smile. You worry too much, you know that? I'm fine."

I raised my eyebrows at her and she did the same back.

"I'm _fine_. I promise."

"Okay. Well, truth or dare? Charades?"

"You choose."

"Fine... Truth or dare."


	30. Chapter 30

**Chapter 30 – Chaos**

**Shane's POV**

"How long do you expect them to be?" Michael asked Amelie, and I was beginning to wonder the same thing. We'd been standing mostly in silence for the past hour and my legs were becoming more and more tired each second.

"They shouldn't be long. Sam managed to survive a silver stake and he will most definitely be filled with hatred."

"That's an understatement," I remarked quietly, but it was so silent in the in the room that everyone heard and turned to look at me. "Who said that?" I demanded as seriously as I could manage, but it was hard when a giant smirk kept appearing on my face.

Amelie sighed and decided to ignore me – which was probably for the best, like always. "To answer your question simply, they will be here soon. Just to warn you all, every vampire that shows up here will be livid, not just Sam. We must be careful. They may be so blinded with hatred that they decide to kill each and every one of us – even if that means the death of them – or they may have planned a strategy that they believe is sure to take us all down. Either way is dangerous, and we need to steer clear of life-threatening danger. We will help each other and we will fight for each other. That is what Morganville does."

The crowd cheered in synchronisation and I realised just how lucky I was to be part of something this big. This was a place that, no matter what you did, you would always have allies; however, at the same time you would always have enemies. Morganville not only taught you how to protect family, it taught you exactly how to deal with your enemies and how to keep yourself alive in the worst moments of your life.

"Everybody quiet!" Oliver ordered in his commander voice. After only five seconds, the entire hall was silent.

"What is it, Oliver?" Amelie asked as she turned toward him. When she had turned about ninety degrees, she froze. "They're here."

**Eve's POV**

"I will absolutely _not _answer that!" Claire told me as she untied another sweetie wrapper and threw the strawberry delight in to her mouth. She sat at the left side of the sofa and I sat on the right.

"You don't have a choice," I said after taking another gulp of coke from the bottle that I held in my right hand. "Come on! If you tell me, I'll tell you."

"It's a stupid question! And I already know what your answer's gonna be."

"It's easy; who did you think was hotter when you first came to Morganville, Michael or Shane?"

"I'm _married_ to Shane!"

"So you thought he was hotter when you first saw him standing beside Michael?"

"I don't know!"

"That's not an answer."

We looked at each other and burst out laughing.

"It feels like years since we last did this," I sighed.

"That's because it has been years since we last did this." She looked at me and suddenly turned serious. "Eve, this could be the last time that we ever do this."

"Don't say that. This will work, you hear me? Sam will die and you, Shane and your baby will live."

"It's not as easy as that; you know that as much as I do. Sonya plunged a silver stake into his heart and yet he's still living. He has an entire army and an overly loyal brother to back him up."

"And we have an entire city. We will _not _lose this one, CB, I promise."

"I'm scared, Eve. If Sam doesn't die – and don't say that he most definitely will because there is a chance that he won't – then me and Shane will die, and our child will die along with us."

I sighed, knowing that telling her Sam would be dead by the end of the day wouldn't make her feel any better, because we both knew that there was a 50/50 chance of that actually happening. "Do you trust Amelie?"

"Yes."

"Do you trust Shane?"

"Yes."

"Do you trust Myrnin and Michael and... and Oliver?"

"I trust Myrnin, I trust Michael, and I think I trust Oliver."

"Then let them do what they have to do. Meanwhile, you need to relax. I've been notified that stress isn't a good thing for a pregnant woman."

She giggled lightly and nodded as she let go of a heavy sigh, "You're right... Shane."

"What about Shane?"

"When I first came to Morganville and came here to ask about the spare room, Michael scared me. Shane seemed nice, and so I liked him better at the time. Anyway, it's your turn."

"I don't want to say."

"You have to! I told you, and you said that you would tell me once I told you."

"Alright, but you can't tell anyone."

"I promise." She held her bottle of coke up to her mouth.

I sighed before confessing, "Shane."

The coke that she had just sipped was spat out as she looked at me bug-eyed and said, "What!?"

"You cannot tell anyone!"

"I promised, didn't I? Now spill!"

Letting go of a dramatic sigh, I stared down at my fidgeting hands. "Before I ever even glanced at Michael, Shane and I were good friends. He was bothered by Monica for a long time before hand and I had always felt sorry for him. And he was hot at the time, but now he's grown in to an annoying..."

"I may have promised not to tell anyone, but he's still my husband."

"God, it's hard to think that just over three years ago we never even knew that each other existed."

I could see that she was thinking about the fact that she could be dead before we'd known each other for four years, but she pushed it back and smiled, asking, "So, truth or dare?"

**Shane's POV**

Everybody was silent, not one person dared move a muscle as Amelie and Oliver walked slowly around the perimeter of the room. We all expected an army of vampires to come charging into the hall with murderous expressions and eyes as red as blood, but what we got was much more surprising.

The roof exploded above us, and where the crowd had been standing as still and silent as statues just moments before, the people in the room were now in motion; some screaming, some running, but what I was proud to see was that most stood together with their weapons held in a tight grip, ready for the battle that was to come.

Angry vampires poured down on us like the rain we never saw. The screams that followed filled the entire room like an air raid siren.

I turned on my heels and found that there was a vampire running toward me. I grabbed the stake that I'd shoved into my deep pocket and plunged it into the vampire's heart.

**Eve's POV**

Before I was able to answer, I heard a loud bang somewhere outside of the house. Claire and I were up and running in seconds.

"Do you think it's...?" I began.

"Definitely," she replied.

We didn't dare open the door in case there was an angry vamp at the other side of the door just waiting for us to go outside. Instead, we looked out the window in the living room to check that the coast was clear.

"Anyone out there?" Claire asked.

"Nope, it's all good," I told her.

We ran to the front door, unlocked it and ran out to the top of the stairs. This far away, all you could see was a ringlet of smoke hovering above Founder's Square.

"What do we do?" Claire asked.

"We do nothing, just like Amelie told us. They can handle this."

I was beginning to think she'd run down the stairs and along to the Elder's Council Building judging by the way she seemed to sway on her feet, but she just looked at the smoke, looked at me, looked down at her stomach, and then nodded. We turned and walked back inside, making sure to lock the door behind us.

"So," she started, "What do we do, sit and wait?"

"That's exactly what we do," I told her.

We sat back on the sofa in silence. I couldn't imagine what was going on over there, and honestly, I was glad that I was here with Claire. I knew that we were safe, and that was more than any of the people in the Elders' Council Building could say.

After minutes of deafening silence, Claire bent forward, screaming and convulsing.

"Claire!" I yelled as she fell to the floor. She balanced herself on both her hands and her knees. She squealed again, this time louder. I spotted a tear falling to the floor.

I bent beside her and touched her upper arm gently. She turned her head to look at me, her eyes glittered with tears and her cheeks were slick with salt water.

"What's wrong, CB?"

"It hurts, Eve."

I didn't know what to do, this wasn't exactly my area of expertise – whatever this was – but I knew when someone needed comfort. I embraced Claire with open arms and she laid her head against my shoulder. I could still feel her shaking, but she seemed to be getting better.

**Claire's POV**

The pain was excruciating. I wasn't sure what it was, all I knew was the pain that it brought.

My head lay against Eve's shoulder and she was whispering in my ear that it would all be okay; that it would all get better.

And she was right, after a few seconds the pain disappeared almost completely.

"It's gone," I told Eve, "It doesn't hurt anymore."

"Well, that's a relief. You scared the hell out of me, Claire Bear!" She gave me a unyielding hug, and I squeezed tight.

"I think I spilled your juice," I told her guiltily.

"You didn't spill my juice, it's sitting on the table," she replied.

"Then what's..." I began, and then the realisation hit me. "Oh my god!"

"Claire, did...? Did...?"

"Yeah, my water just broke. God, I'm going into labour! Eve, I'm going into labour!" I was panicking and I knew I shouldn't be because that helped in no way whatsoever.

"Claire, it's going to be okay. I'll call Amelie and tell her to send someone."

"I'm only seven months gone, Eve. If this baby is born today, then I die today, and so does Shane."

"If killing Sam is what it takes, then killing Sam is what we are going to do. You hear me? Do you want to go to your room?"

"Can we go to Amelie's room? It's safer than the rest of the house."

"Of course, should I call Amelie first?"

"Please."

When Eve left to get her phone from the table in the hall, I lay back on the floor. I couldn't process properly what was going on; all I could process was the fact that Shane and I were going to die. There was no way on earth that we could survive, us or our baby.

"Amelie?" I heard an irritated Eve say, "Answer your stupid phone! Claire's gone into labour and we need you to send help, I don't care who, just send someone who can keep people calm and has experience with this sort of thing. Claire?" she asked me.

"Uh-huh."

"Do you want Shane here?"

"No, they need as much help as they can get, and I've already taken one person away." She looked at me with a question swimming in her eyes. "Eve, please. If we're going to die, then we can't go without a fight."

She nodded her head before saying to the phone, "Don't tell Shane, he'll want to come and you need as many people as you can get."

I heard a beep that signalled the phone call had ended.

"Do you need anything?" Eve asked me.

I shook my head. The only thing I needed was the only thing I couldn't ask for – Shane.

After another small while, I heard Eve dial numbers on her phone again.

**Amelie's POV**

The hall was filled with unimaginable chaos – knives and stakes and fangs and spears – but the worst part was that there was no roof overhead. If I survived this, then I would need to deal with that as soon as possible.

I felt a vibration in the pocket of my black trousers. It was probably the mobile phone that Claire had given me to 'keep in contact.' I was away to dig it out and answer, however, I was interrupted by a very annoyed Morley.

I grabbed the silver stake that I had pinned to the back of my blue silk blazer and held it behind my back to keep it hidden.

"Are you here to kill me?" I asked.

"You left my brother for dead; of course I'm here to kill you!"

"Well, we both know that your precious brother is still alive – or as alive as a vampire can be. Where is he on this fateful evening?"

"That's not important," he stated.

"I consider it very important. He managed to survive a silver stake, and we both know that is almost impossible."

"_Almost _impossible. I lost my hand saving my brother." He held up his left arm, and just as he had said there was no hand where there was supposed to be, just a stump. "And I am here to ensure that you lose your life this _fateful evening_, considering what you did to me and my brother; it seems fair, does it not?"

"What I did to your brother had nothing to do with you, it is not my fault that you decided to risk your soul for a soul as blackened as your brother's."

"It was _you_ that blackened his soul, Amelie. It was _you _who gave away his baby boy without his knowledge or consent. You blackened his soul when he first became a vampire and I – like a fool – stood by and watched as you ruined his life!"

"I _was _his life, Morley! You know that as well as I do. Nothing I could have said or done would have made a difference. The only thing that blackened his heart was his own selfishness and cruelty."

"You continue to defend your wretched self and I fail to understand why. You have lived a lie, Amelie. You locked a box that should have been kept open to haunt you for your entire lifetime; instead, you chose the easy way out. Sam did not. He fought for his sanity, but sadly lost it on the way. I blame you for that, Amelie, and I am here to get the revenge I have always dreamed of."

I felt another vibration from my mobile and looked Morley directly in the eye as I said, "I will allow you to get the revenge that you have always wanted, Morley, but there is something that I need to do beforehand."

I turned away from him and walked to the door that led in to the hall as I pulled the phone from my pocket. The Caller ID read 'Eve Glass.'

When I answered, the first thing I heard at the other end of the phone was, "Answer!" which was closely followed by, "Huh, it finally worked."

"What is it, Eve? If you didn't already know, I'm a bit busy at the moment."

"Too busy to hear that Claire has gone into labour?"

"What do you mean?"

"Exactly what I just said; her water broke fifteen minutes ago, she's not had any contractions but we need help."

"I will send Shane and Myrnin to..."

"Don't send Shane; don't even tell him that she's in labour."

"Why not? He _is_ the father."

"Claire doesn't want to take too many people from the fight."

I sighed, "Well, I shall have to respect her wishes. I will send help soon."

**Myrnin's POV**

I was tremendously proud of myself this evening. I had killed almost ten of the oppositions in the battle so far and injured at least twenty – as the children would say, I was on fire!

Vampires kept attacking from every direction, and I had to keep my eye out for the next attacker that came my way.

I felt a tap on my back and turned in a hurry, and surprisingly it was Amelie I found standing behind me.

"You need to make your way to the Glass House right this second. Get all the equipment you need on the way, Claire is in labour."

She left no time for questions before zooming away.

**Michael's POV**

Everywhere I looked, there were vampires. I wasn't afraid of vampires, but I couldn't exactly say I was comfortable in a room full of angry, ancient, biological vampires.

I hadn't killed any, and I certainly wasn't disappointed because of that. I couldn't help thinking that these vampires were all people. They had been turned against their will because of some stupid experiment. Had they been forced to leave their families? Had they been shunned by the ones they loved most?

I was surprised when I bumped in to a panicking Myrnin who looked as if he was heading somewhere.

"Myrnin?" I asked him, "Are you okay?"

"I am very well, thank you, although I cannot say the same for Claire."

"What do you mean?" I said, panic that mirrored Myrnin's rising to the surface. "Is Claire okay?"

"She is alive, don't worry," he assured me, "But she might not be for long; she's gone in to labour."

"But she's only seven months!"

"I am only repeating what Amelie has told me," he said.

"Is Shane going?" I asked.

"I would assume so, although I was told nothing of him. Stay here, and if you find Sam, make sure to end him."

With that, Myrnin rushed away, leaving me shivering with worry. I wanted to help Claire but I knew that the only way I could do so was to kill Sam, and I hadn't seen Sam anywhere.


	31. Chapter 31

**Chapter 31 – Determination**

**Eve's POV**

I sat with Claire in Amelie's "secret" room for what felt like hours before I heard a small tap at the door. Claire was sitting on the red sofa as I sat on the floor, so it was her that pressed the button to allow Myrnin inside.

I'd been expecting him, even when I'd said to Amelie that she could send anyone. I was glad that it was him that she sent, he was familiar, and I could honestly say that I trusted him.

"I hear you're in labour," was the first thing he said as he entered the room.

His reply was a frustrated mumble that sounded like, "Don't need to be reminded."

"Do you know anything about Sam, was he there?" I asked.

Myrnin looked from me to Claire sympathetically and shook his head. "From what I could see, he didn't turn up. However, let's think positive."

"What could possibly be positive, Myrnin?" Claire asked. "I always try to look on the bright side of life, I do, but here are the facts. I'm pregnant; actually, I'm in labour! The only way for me, Shane and the baby to survive is for a vampire, who could be anywhere in the world right now, to die. I can't see a bright side in any of this, it's all dark."

Neither Myrnin nor I could argue against her, so we decided to instead make a few jokes and try to get a smile on her face.

**Amelie's POV**

Once I had talked to Eve on the phone and sorted everything out with Myrnin, I made my way back to Morley. I knew I had been lucky to have been allowed to take the phone call in the first place, so now I needed to return and fight it out the way that we had both wished to for so many centuries.

"Amelie, how nice of you to return, I assume you have done all that you needed to do?"

"I have," I replied.

"Perfect! Then let's get down to business." He was suddenly behind me, a silver knife threateningly caressing my neck. I shivered as he whispered his next words in my ear, "You will die right here, right now."

**Claire's POV**

I tried to smile, I really did, but they were making it increasingly difficult for me. Not only was I soon to die, the jokes that they were making were ridiculous.

Myrnin's were things like, "I remember my mid-wife days; I considered myself quite the professional. Well, until I realised that too much blood made it tremendously hard to do my job." Way to make me feel better Myrnin!

Eve's were things like, "When this baby is born, I promise that I'll sit and watch as you change the nappies." I had scarcely considered the possibility that we would survive this, let alone the jobs that would have to be done if we did survive.

So I sat and stared at the two people who were trying to make my life better at this moment. They weren't doing a very good job, but I appreciated them trying.

"Do you have any idea what you're doing?" I asked Myrnin.

"Why, of course! You did hear my story of my days as a mid-wife, did you not?"

"How could I not," I mumbled back.

Any question I asked had a slim chance of getting a proper answer. Every doubt that I spoke aloud was brushed aside as they said what they always said, "You, Shane and the baby _will_ survive."

But what if we didn't? They didn't seem to understand the situation I was in while at the same time understanding it fully. The only person that could make me feel better at this moment in time was Shane, and I would not take him away from Amelie at this unbearable time; every person counted.

**Myrnin's POV**

She was full of questions, dear Claire; questions that I could not answer without worrying her deeply.

The latest had been, "Do you have any idea what you're doing?" The honest answer to that question would be no, but I was one of the best improvisationalists on this planet – and the best creator of words considering that improvisationalist is not a word as there is no such thing as an improvisationalist (although if I said it in a casual sentence, many people would believe that it was – oh the modern day!). I couldn't answer her honestly without perturbing her, so I decided to bring up the topic of my mid-wife career once again.

Truth be told, I had not once had a career that involved so much blood, but if she believed that I hadn't ever dealt with this sort of thing before, then she would begin to have doubts – well, more than she already had.

I was starting to consider returning to Founder's Square and telling Amelie that it would be better if she sent an experienced doctor, or someone to that effect. However, I knew myself that the number of doctors that Morganville had were limited – if at all – and there was not a high enough number to find someone in the time that we had left.

The time that Claire had left.

I hated thinking of it, but she was right. Eve and I persevered in putting her many doubts to rest, although, it was obvious that we were in no way helping whatsoever. She knew that the chance of she and Shane surviving was much lower than them dying, we all knew it. Sam hadn't been anywhere in the hall before I left, and if he had hadn't been there then, chances were he wasn't there now.

Our only chance to ensure Claire and Shane's survival was just out of reach.

**Michael's POV**

The amount of people fighting had definitely decreased over the period of time that we had been in conflict. Bodies lay dead or injured on the floor wherever you looked, and it was beginning to make me feel uneasy.

I had looked for Sam everywhere as I battled it out with old vampires and then ran from them as another came to help kill me. There had been one time that I had played dead, and the vampire had actually fallen for the act. I had been more grateful in that moment than I had been in my entire life.

Well, that's not exactly true. The thing that I was most grateful for was Claire. I loved Eve all the same, but I never would have been with Eve had it not been for Claire's arrival to Morganville. Since that day, I had been able to confess that I was a ghost, ask Amelie – whom I had known as simply the Founder before Claire had shown up – to turn me into a vampire so that I could venture outside of the house, be cured from a vampire to a human, and then be both the Best Man and the Groom at Eve and I's – and Shane and Claire's – wedding.

The gratitude that I held toward Claire was what pushed me to keep fighting. Sam was my target, and when I saw my target, my aim never missed; not when I was this determined. To support my gratitude toward Claire was my hatred toward Sam. He had locked us in a Crypt for three days just to get back at Amelie as she witnessed all of the events helplessly inside of her possessed body.

And after all of this, he couldn't even be bothered to show up here today. Instead, he had sent his minion army to do his dirty work.

Not only was that guy a scumbag, he was a coward. And I would make sure that that was his downfall.

**Claire's POV**

It had been only half an hour since I went into labour, but it felt like it had been longer. I'd had my first contraction just several minutes ago, and I was beginning to wonder whether dying would be a better alternative to the pain that I was facing.

My second contraction was only two minutes later, and that one hadn't seemed as bad. With each contraction came more tolerance – if that was the word for it – but I repeated silently to myself that if Shane and I did survive, then afterward we would have a beautiful baby girl. If that happened, then it would be worth it.

Ten minutes later my third contraction came, and Eve once again kneeled down beside the sofa and took hold of my hand. "Are you sure you don't want me to call Shane?" she asked.

I shook my head rapidly and said, "Don't call him, please." However, after a while, my mind started to tell me that it was the right thing to do –but that was only a small fraction of my mind, and so the biggest part of me continued to say no every time she asked.

I had to stay strong mentally, no matter how weak I was physically.

**Michael's POV**

As I moved on my only thought was, "I just killed someone." They had pushed me to the ground with all of their weight and held a wooden stake up above their head.

To my surprise, "they" had been female. I had imagined a big and bulky man with eyes as black as coal, but that wasn't what I had gotten. She was one of the most beautiful vampires I had ever seen. Her golden blonde hair had been short and trimmed into her face, and before her eyes turned red, they had been a soft and silky brown.

With the stake in the air and the point aimed directly for my heart, I had panicked immensely. When her hand had begun to travel toward me, I had flipped out and rolled on my side. The stake – instead of hitting me – hit the floor, and the wooden point had split. I hadn't known whether she was an old vampire or a newly made one, but the odds seemed to have been in my favour as I grabbed the stake from her hand in her moment of surprise and lunged forward to pierce her skin, and finally pierce her heart.

It had taken scarcely ten seconds before she turned limp and fell to the floor. She had been newly made, yet she had been one of the strongest vampires that I had ever been up against.

I hadn't wanted to kill her, I hadn't wanted to kill anyone, but it had been her or me. If Claire and Shane didn't make it, it would just be Eve and I. I couldn't have let myself die just so that I could say I hadn't killed anyone today – I couldn't have done that to Eve.

Lost in my distracted thoughts, someone barged into me from my right. I quickly pulled myself to the present and turned before my head was chopped off.

To my surprise, yet again, it was Shane who had barged into me. "I'm sorry, bro. I'm trying to find Amelie."

"No worries. I'm surprised that you're still here."

"Why wouldn't I be?"

I inhaled quickly, realising that he didn't know about Claire.

"Michael, what's going on?"

I wanted to tell him, but something inside me told me that if Claire had wanted him to know, he would know. "So, why do you need to find Amelie?"

"Mike, if there's something I need to know about..."

But I couldn't _not_ tell him; he was my best friend.

"Mikey..?"

"Claire's gone in to labour," I stated simply.

"No she's not, Amelie would have told me."

"I thought you knew, man. Myrnin told me that he was going down to help her. He said that he thought you'd been told. Shane, why do you need Amelie?"

"I saw Sam," was all he said before falling silent, then he just turned and walked away from me, most likely to the front door of the building.


	32. Chapter 32

**Chapter 32 – Information Chains**

**Shane's POV**

I didn't know what to think, I didn't know how to act. Instead of lashing out and allowing myself to see red as I would have done a while back, I decided that I would stay calm and make my journey to the Glass House.

There I would find Eve, Claire... and _Myrnin_. Of course it was Myrnin! Who else would it be? Claire had decided to tell him over me, like always.

I was surprised not to be attacked suddenly by a bypassing vampire, but my guess was that they probably didn't want to attack me. I was radiating heat like a steam train.

The funny thing was, even when I knew that Claire had decided to keep this information from me, I couldn't bring myself to be mad at her. She wouldn't have done something like this without reason, and it was my intention to find out what that reason was.

"You can kill me all you want, but we both know that killing me won't solve your problems." The voice that said this was surprisingly familiar, although, it sounded much more distressed than I had ever heard it.

"Maybe not, but I can guarantee that it will make me feel a whole lot better," was the reply from another horribly familiar voice.

I turned to look to my left and found an incredibly angry Morley holding a distressed Amelie hostage. He was facing away from me, so he didn't notice me standing only a few feet away.

I felt the need to do something but evaluated my current situation. Claire was in labour, and if I didn't hurry, I might never see her again before we both died and lost the child that we never got the chance to meet.

Taking a deep but silent sigh, I turned to the door and continued the way I had intended to travel in the first place. Amelie could take care of herself.

**Amelie's POV**

"You can kill me all you want, but killing me isn't going to solve your problems," I said to Morley. He was still holding me in a tight grip and continued to balance the knife gently against the skin of my neck.

"Maybe not," he replied, "But I can guarantee that it will make me feel a whole lot better."

"How about a negotiation," I offered after a few seconds of hesitation. I didn't know what I was doing in the slightest but the words slipped out without my consent.

"What sort of negotiation? You do realise that any bargain made between you and I would have to benefit me greatly."

"I can't promise you anything, as I do not know what you would expect, although, I can say that if you release me at this moment we can discuss further on appropriate terms."

He seemed to stay silent in thought for the next minute, leaving me in horrifying suspense. Some part of me, however, wanted him to say no. I didn't have any idea what this so called bargain would consist of; therefore, a fight would have been so much less problematic at this precise moment.

"I have considered, and I realise that I have been rather harsh. I agree to a bar..." He was cut off in the middle of the last word, and suddenly I was released from his strong grip.

I turned instantly to see what had caused this irregular occurrence, and I was surprised to discover a cursing Shane standing behind a furious Morley. All I could see of Morley was the back of his head.

"What is going on?" I demanded.

Instead of a spoken answer, Morley turned slowly to face me; what I saw made me gasp in horror.

His face was covered in red burns, and his right eyelid was drooping so low that I wondered if there was still an eye in the socket. I heard Shane murmur quietly behind him, "You're looking a bit under the weather."

Instead of turning back to Shane, Morley looked at me accusingly, asking, "Was this your big plan? Stall me for a few trivial minutes and have one of your minions throw acid on my face."

As I began to reply, Shane interrupted, "I am _not _her minion! Nor anyone else's for that matter. In fact, I wish to have a word with Amelie alone, if that's alright with you. And just to be clear, if it isn't alright with you, I really don't care."

"First your little minion throws acid on my face and next he's telling me to buggar off?!"

Shane repeated, "I am _not _Amelie's minion and I am certainly not small! But yes, may you please buggar off – if you want me to put it in posh terms."

Morley said, "I'll leave you two to talk, and not because I wish to be kind and allow you some privacy, but because I have acid on my face and wish to clean it off." Before leaving, he turned to look at me and said, "I will be back, and I don't agree to your bargain deal, this little minion changed my mind."

To my surprise, Shane didn't react a third time to what Morley called him. Instead, he allowed Morley to saunter away before taking hold of my arm and dragging me over to the corner.

As all of these occurrences took place, the battle continued on. I was mesmerized at the fact that we hadn't been attacked yet, although, I had noticed the loss in numbers over the period of time that we had been fighting.

"Why didn't you tell me Claire was in labour?" Shane demanded immediately, and I instantly regretted not arguing with Eve. The dear boy held unshed tears in his eyes that could not be seen by the normal human eye, but with the heightened sense of sight that vampirism brought, I could see them perfectly clear.

"She didn't want a fuss, and she didn't want to place us at a disadvantage."

"She could have said that! _You _could have said that! All I'm saying is that I should have been informed that my baby was on its way!"

"How did you find out?" I asked, suddenly curious.

"You told Myrnin, Myrnin told Michael, Michael told me. It's kind of like a food chain, just instead of containing food, it contains information... It's an information chain!"

"What were you doing with Michael?" I asked.

"I'd been trying to find you," he replied.

"Why? You hadn't known that Claire was in labour at that point."

"No, but I thought I should have informed you of something important."

"And that something is..?"

"You didn't tell me about Claire, so why should I tell you about Sam?"

"What about Sam?"

"Damn, I'm terrible at keeping secrets!"

And as he told me, my eyes grew wider with each passing second.

**Claire's POV**

I wish I could say that the pain had died down over the period of time I had been in labour, but if I were being honest, what I would actually say is, "This is painful! Help! Can you be in labour for me?"

I must admit, it wasn't as scary as I had thought it would be – not the dying part, the childbirth part. Dying still scared the hell out me when I thought about it too deeply; and it probably didn't help with my scientific nature.

Once you die, you're dead. That's it. Nothing to live for afterward, science proves it – or at least that's what I believe, unless your magic house saves you and allows you to continue on as a ghost. Most people that I knew of died at the age of seventy onwards, if they lived a healthy lifestyle and weren't killed by a vampire anyway – _wow, my life is crazy_ – but I was going to die at nineteen years old! What would there be after that? A never ending darkness? A place of nothing where you're forgotten amongst your friends and family?

It scared me so much that the fear itself might end up being the thing to kill me, and if it didn't, my child was sure to.

Well, that would just be a short summary of my messed up and twisted life in the vampire world, but that was what kept going over and over in my head, over and over and over and over and over...

**Shane's POV**

I had planned on leaving, I'd even reached the front door to the Elders' Council Building – and that was without being attacked by an angry evil vampire dude – but I knew that Amelie was in danger, and I also knew that the answers I wanted were with her, so I did what I should have done in the first place. Turning on my heels I began to head back the way I had come, thanking my common sense that I had thought to put acid in my back pocket.

I didn't listen in to their conversation this time, I just took action. With the acid in my hand, I quickly threw it over Morley's face (careful not to get it on Amelie.) He let go of Amelie faster than I could comprehend, and suddenly he was facing me with a face full of rage; it was just a shame that I wasn't scared of him – well, for him anyway.

"What's going on?" I heard a shocked Amelie exclaim.

"You're looking a bit under the weather," I remarked silently as he turned to face Amelie. When his back was facing me, I could hear Amelie gasp in horror. What she would be seeing right now was a bright red face covered in burns and scratches and an eye so closed it looked as if it didn't exist.

"Was this your big plan?" Morley asked Amelie, and I was immediately confused. Maybe I should have eavesdropped before I threw that bottle of acid on his face. He continued, saying, "Stall me for a few trivial minutes and have one of your minions throw acid on my face."

Before I could tell myself to stay quiet, I shouted, "I am _not _her minion! Nor anyone else's for that matter. In fact, I wish to have a word with Amelie alone, if that's alright with you. And just to be clear, if it isn't alright with you, I really don't care."

Still facing Amelie he said, "First your little minion throws acid on my face and next he's telling me to buggar off?!"

"As I said before," I started, calmer than the first time, "I am _not _Amelie's minion and I'm certainly not small! But yes, may you please buggar off – if you want me to put it in posh terms."

"I'll leave you two to talk," Morley chirped in a rather unpleasant voice, "and not because I wish to be kind and allow you some privacy, but because I have acid on my face and wish to clean it off." Just before he left, he turned to Amelie and said, "I will be back, and I don't agree to your bargain deal, this little minion changed my mind."

Instead of telling him a last time that I was not Amelie's little minion I decided to let him go. The next few minutes consisted of me and Amelie arguing about Claire being in labour. It finally rested on Amelie asking, "How did you find out?"

"You told Myrnin, Myrnin told Michael, Michael told me. It's kind of like a food chain, just instead of food it's information... An information chain!" I exclaimed.

Then it moved onto a full-blown investigation.

"What were you doing with Michael?"

"I'd been trying to find you."

"Why? You hadn't known that Claire was in labour at that point."

"No, but I thought I should have informed you of something important." I had decided not to tell her of my encounter with Sam, considering she hadn't told me of my baby soon being born and all three of us soon being dead.

"And that something is..?"

"You didn't tell me about Claire, so why should I tell you about Sam?"

"What about Sam?"

Well, I'd put my foot in that one. I was currently leading her back to the point that I had last seen Sam, and she was asking me thousands of god-damn questions that I wasn't in the mood to answer.

Finally we reached a point in the hall of quarrelling vampires that didn't have any individual battles taking place. Turning to my right, I pointed toward the chair in the corner of the room that was covered in dust.

"Sam."

He must have heard Amelie's silent statement, because he turned his head in our direction. His smile made my stomach churn, and worse was the fact that in his hand held a silver stake – and I was betting that the blood at the tip of that stake had once been running through his veins.

I shivered at the thought.


	33. Chapter 33

**Chapter 33 – The Offering**

**Claire's POV**

"What do you think is happening at the Elder's Council Building?" I asked after a long (and strangely not awkward) silence.

I thought of Shane, fighting his battles and winning them all without the knowledge that soon his child would be born and he would be dead – we would both be dead. Was there a chance that we weren't ever going to see each other again, that we would die without one last kiss, that we would die without even a straightforward goodbye?

The answer was too horrifying to bear, although I knew what it was. Yes, there was a chance that we would die without a goodbye hug or a goodnight's kiss. I had always imagined dying on my death bed surrounded by the people that I loved and cared about; Eve, Myrnin, Amelie, Michael, Shane, our child that had actually been born, possibly even Oliver. These were the people that I had always imagined would be here by my side. I had two, and those two were a great choice, although I knew exactly who I would ask for was I to have a third choice.

After my question I had gotten so lost in thoughts of death that the answer that Eve had provided had been a small hum at the back of my mind. She was staring at me now, saying over and over, "Claire, Claire? Hello, you in there?" I hadn't actually realised that that's what she had been saying until my thoughts evaporated like a tray of melted ice and I exited dreamland and returned to reality. That was what my dreamland consisted of, how bad is that?!

"What did you say?" I asked Eve.

With a heavy sigh she repeated, "I _said_ that they will be kicking the other side's ass like only God knows how. That's what is happening!"

I smiled slightly, and I didn't actually know whether it was a real smile or not. Then I turned to Myrnin, "Do you think that's true? Do you think we're winning? You _were_ there for a large part of it."

"I think we are trying our complete best over there, and I think that we need to keep our faith in the ones we love most. They are doing all that they can, what that is we do not know so far, but we will be informed soon enough."

That was probably one of the most reassuring things that he'd said to me that day, and that was pretty funny considering that everything he'd said to me that day had consisted of mid-wife careers and a survival that wasn't going to happen.

By the end of tomorrow, I would be dead, and Shane would be dead, and everyone else would be writing our eulogies.

**Amelie's POV**

He sat in the chair with a smile slowly creeping up his face and eyes glittering with a small tinge of red.

His arm suddenly raised and he made a 'come here' signal with his finger. I didn't want to obey his rules, but where it was his rule it was also mine. I wanted to saunter over there and stick that ugly silver stake into his heart, and this time I would remember to pull it out, allowing the silver nitrate to fill his heart and take over his bloodstream and flood to every other organ in his body.

Okay, I really needed to calm down.

"Amelie, you look... different."

"I'll take that as a compliment. What on earth are you doing sitting back here?"

"I wished to quarrel somewhere a little less public. Look at the amount of people here!" he exclaimed, gesturing toward the crowd that neither I nor Shane even dared to glace at.

"Yeah, well most of them are dead, so not much to worry about is there?" Shane said. Any emotion had certainly been extracted from his voice.

"I assume that was a dig in my direction that I will happily take as constructive criticism," Sam replied in a tone that made it obvious that the chirpiness in his voice was as false as a fake tan.

"I was thinking you could take it as more of a full on insult and discouragement," Shane remarked, although he sounded completely sincere, which probably meant that he was, in fact, completely serious. He hated Sam in a way that I never could, although, there was no doubt that I hated him with much more passion that Shane would ever be able to accomplish throughout his human life span.

"Well, that wasn't very nice, was it Amelie?"

I replied, "I think they describe it as 'a taste of your own medicine.'"

"Am I being ganged up on here?" Sam demanded in a strangely childish tone, however, he received no answer from either of us.

Finally I asked, "What are you doing here?"

"Considering that there is an entire army fighting because of their fury they hold toward you for plunging a silver stake into _my_ heart, I thought it was only respectful that I attend."

"Attend? This is what you call attending?" Shane asked from beside me, "Your 'army' is beating the hell out of our people and our people are beating the hell out of yours, but all you can do is sit here and watch. That isn't respectful, is it Amelie?"

Instead of answering Shane with a remark, I said, "No, I do not believe it is."

"You _are_ ganging up against me!" Sam stated accusingly, and I couldn't help but laugh.

"You always did have a strange concept of friend or foe," I began, "and now you can't even work out the difference between your alliance and your enemy. Just in case you need reminding, we are your enemy, and we would appreciate it very much if you could understand that and get down to business instead of droning on for no such reason."

"Well alright! Is there a place in the building that is more quiet, I do not wished to be interrupted by my people during what I am about to do."

I furrowed my eyebrows in confusion, but nodded my head and gestured toward the front door. He voluntarily walked in that direction and we followed closely behind.

**Claire's POV**

"Come on, Claire, breathe, just breathe!" I tried with all my might to complete the task that Eve asked of me, but I couldn't think past the howling pain that coursed through my body.

"It hurts!" I bellowed, and then realised a moment too late that I had yelled right in Eve's ear.

She didn't seem bothered, "I know, Claire Bear, just hold on!"

I felt like I was giving birth already, but we all knew that this was just an unbearably painful contraction. I was beginning to wish that I had been a boy. I wouldn't have been the one to fall pregnant, I wouldn't have to care about what I was wearing each day of the week, and I would have been able to pee standing up! Unfortunately, it was a bit too late to change the fact that I was female and currently in child labour, but a pregnant woman could dream.

"It's wearing off," I told them with a voice full of relief. "How could any woman go through this more than once?" Eve started laughing at me. "No, I'm being serious! You see these women who have eleven or more children. A true fact is, if you have that many children, you wouldn't feel a thing if you were to get a tattoo."

"That's an interesting fact, CB," Eve said.

I was about to say 'thank you' when another contraction came...

Oh, just what I needed.

**Amelie's POV**

As we made our way through the door, Sam turned back toward me and asked, "Where to now?"

"It depends how private you wish this discussion to be," I replied.

"As private as possible. The boy is lucky that I am allowing him to come, not many people would have the privilege."

"Then why allow me to come?" Shane asked.

"I consider it best that you witness for yourself what is about to take place," and once all had been said – and after I told Sam which direction to take for a completely private meeting – we walked; Sam in front and Shane and I trailing behind.

We reached a small house that I had never had the heart to sell. It had been Sam's house – not this Sam, Sam Glass, my last love.

The inside looked as it had when I first sold it to him, when he had looked at me and nodded his head politely meanwhile containing his feelings as I did mine. I had intended it to be this way; he hadn't once moved a piece of furniture. He had thought that it would take away the unidentifiable beauty of the household.

I kept my emotions to myself as we stood in a terrifying silence. I hadn't realised until then what I was letting myself – and Shane – walk in to. Sam may have hired a group of people to ambush us, although, I had trusted that that was not Sam's intention. He seemed to be losing his mind in a more thought-processing way, not in a way that said 'Hi everybody, I'm so crazy that I'm gonna hire a bunch of guys to kill these people'.

"What is this business about?" I asked Sam, and he turned around to face me with a face filled with (surprisingly) sorrow and determination.

"I am here to apologise," he stated simply.

I didn't know how to reply, but I didn't have to as he continued to speak.

"As you probably both know I am losing my mind. It began in violence, and now has continued in thought. I am no scientist, but I am bright enough to realise that I have the vampire disease.

"When I was doing my research to bring you all down, I discovered this disease in the many papers that I had to read. I also discovered that you found the cure, although, that is not what I wish to ask of you.

"Your words from the other day, when you discovered that the child... Claire, that's it. When you discovered that Claire was pregnant, you told me that I had already lived a long enough life. I didn't believe it at the time, but the thoughts that have been circling through my head over the past few days since have told me exactly what I was too blind to see before.

"I _have _lived too long, you were right. And I intend to die here and now to allow Claire and Shane to survive and have their beautiful child." He took a silver stake out of his pocket and handed it to me. "I want _you_ to be the one to kill me, Amelie. I want _you _to end my suffering."

**Claire's POV**

After the many contractions I had gone through, I could tell that the pain I was experiencing now was no contraction.

I was in labour, and now I was giving birth.

"Claire! Listen to me, you _will _be okay!" Eve had begun to shout as the tears streamed down my face. I couldn't get past the fact that I was going to die so very shortly, I didn't want to get past the fact that I was going to die so very shortly. But in a way, it was a privilege.

So many people died suddenly – both awake and asleep. I, instead, had the knowledge that I was about to die, more than so many other people had before they left the world...

And I hadn't even used that information to say my goodbyes!

I wouldn't ever see Shane again, or Amelie, or Michael, or even Monica! I wouldn't see Oliver, or Father Joe. Every person that I considered a friend wasn't close enough for me to say goodbye to, only Eve and Myrnin. So I decided to use that privilege in my last moments.

"Eve," I said.

"What is it, Claire? What's wrong?"

"I'm just dying, don't worry too much." This earned a not amused laugh from Eve. "I wanted to say thank you, for everything you've done for me. For taking me in when I was in a bad way, for loving me like a sister – not just a best friend. And for this last day, a day that I will always remember, even after death. Goodbye, Eve, and thank you so much for everything." Tears weren't just strolling down my face, but now hers also. She grabbed me and took me in to a gentle hug, ensuring not to hurt my stomach at this moment. "Can you tell Michael the same thing, not the sister part, of course." This caused another, more amused, laugh. I was happy (well, as happy as I could be) that I wasn't going to die in a boring environment – as weird as that sounds. "And since I can't say bye to Shane, I guess there's no message I can leave behind for him."

"Give me the message, just as if you were saying it to him. It might help with this... situation."

She was finally accepting that I was going to die, that Shane was going to die along with me. I decided to take her advice, so I took a deep breath...

And then a blinding pain passed through my body. I screamed.

"Claire, you're okay, it's okay."

"Eve, it... it... it hurts!"

"I know, but you can do this, come on, the only thing left to do is push!"

I did what she asked, and I couldn't describe the pain that followed.

**Amelie's POV**

"Excuse me?" I demanded.

"I'll do it!" Shane suddenly piped up as he reached forward to try to grab hold of the stake.

"I don't think so," Sam whistled, pulling the stake away from his reach. "I want you to kill me, Amelie. Not anyone else. I realise that what you did back then – both giving our son away and locking us in the Crypt – was for the best, and I did not repay you the way I should have. Please, Amelie. Just end this."

I was too shocked to take the stake, even though I knew that Claire was close to giving birth just a mile or so away. I looked at Sam and saw the sincerity in his eyes.

"Well, alright then," he said to me, "I guess I'll begin this." With no further ado, he shoved the silver stake into his heart – the only sign of his pain showing in his widening eyes.

I gasped, even though I knew that vampires did not need air to survive.

"Pull it, Amelie. Do what you forgot to do the first time."

I looked at him with sympathy before pulling the stake out of his heart. I heard the silver flood his heart and make its way through his veins.

Before collapsing to the floor, Sam looked at me and whispered, "I'll always love you."

**Claire's POV**

The pain was an endless river, becoming more concentrated and rapid at every moment. I had pushed three times so far as I sat on the floor with my head against the sofa. "I see the head, Claire," Myrnin told me, "Just a little bit more and this will all be over."

That was an understatement.

Eve crouched beside me and clasped my hand, "You're doing great!"

I continued to push, and within ten minutes the pain began to fade. The baby did not cry as I delivered it, the baby did nothing that showed that it was alive.

With tears staining my face, I passed away.

**Amelie's POV**

Sam was dead on the floor and Shane was still alive, standing there, right beside me.

And then suddenly Shane collapsed on the ground, not as if he were fainting, not as if his legs had buckled under him or he had tripped over something.

He just fell.


	34. Chapter 34

**Chapter 34 – Life and Death**

**Eve's POV**

She looked peaceful. That was the first thing that I noticed. Her skin was smooth and her eyes were closed, and it looked as if she were just sleeping, as if she were just taking a little nap after the hard works of child birth.

I looked over to see how Myrnin was reacting to the situation only to find him busying himself with other simplicities.

"Myrnin?" I asked, and he turned to look at me with his usual crazy smile – this one seemed crazier than normal by the fact that he was smiling after Claire had just... gone.

"Why yes, Eve, how could I be of service?"

"Why aren't you mourning? She just _died _for God's sake; the least you could do is shed a tear."

"I have grieved over this one more time than I can count, and I promise you that I am mourning on the inside, but I need to keep myself busy before I start hitting people with things. The other times I knew that there was still a chance, but this time..." He trailed off and looked at Claire's corpse. She held her little child in her arms, wrapped up in blankets, but both looked as pale as ghosts. Coughing, he averted his gaze and continued to keep himself busy.

I wish I could do what he was doing, block out the rest of the world and continue with normal activities that had the potential to distract someone from the awful time of bereavement. They were just trivial things – tidying things up or locking things away, wiping imaginary dirt from his shirt or polishing his totally messed up shoes with the pristine shirt that he had just ensured had no dirt on it... It certainly did now anyway.

Instead, I sat in a pile on the floor beside Claire's corpse and her baby's wrapped up body and shed more tears. I was afraid that they would drown Morganville, leaving just a small desert in its place. Although, I knew that that wasn't possible, and I also knew that I was beginning to get tired. All of this had done me no favours at all, and I knew the only thing that I needed now was sleep.

And so I closed my eyes and let myself slip away just as silently as Claire had done so before.

**Amelie's POV**

I stood in a room with two collapsed men, one human and one vampire.

I quickly approached Shane where he lay on the floor. His skin was like the clouds that Morganville could only dream of having, pure white. His eyes were closed tight and his hair pointed every which way as he lay on the floor.

I scooted forward and placed my hands on each side of his face and felt the ice cold temperature that his body had dropped to.

I gasped in horror, but instead of moving away I rested my hand on his neck where his pulse should have been.

And it was, weak and shaky, but it was most definitely there.

I knew exactly what to do.

**Myrnin's POV**

I couldn't bear to look at her body, it was cowardly and pathetic, but I just couldn't. So I decided instead to busy myself with useless things that people would usually do on a daily basis.

Anything that looked as if it needed a clean was cleaned and anywhere that contained a mess was tidied – although, there weren't many messes in Amelie's secret room, the occupiers of this house were certainly not clueless.

I heard a telephone ring down the stairs and glanced in Eve's direction. She was asleep, and she had decided to sleep next to Claire's dead body, meaning that when I looked over at her I saw the corpse of my old friend, my old assistant.

I knew that I couldn't let the call go to voicejail – or was it voicemail? Whatever it was, I couldn't let it happen. It could be something important.

So I walked over to the sofa without looking at the two people that lay against it and clicked the button that allowed the door to open.

Using my vampire speed, I was at the telephone downstairs in a jiffy.

"Glass House's telephone, how may I help you?" I spoke through the phone.

"Myrnin?"

"Yes Amelie, it is I."

"Is Claire alright, you don't seem at all what I thought you would have been like was she dead."

"Claire _is_ dead, Amelie. She is lying in your secret room as peaceful as a butterfly."

"Can you please check her pulse?" she asked.

"I can't even bear to look at her, let alone take her last heart beat measurements.

"We killed Sam, Myrnin. Shane collapsed after Sam had been killed; however, he still has a heartbeat. He is alive, but only barely. Considering that Claire had to give birth during her last moments makes her chance of survival thinner than Shane's. I shall attempt to wake Shane and take him to the Glass House, meanwhile, check Claire's pulse. If she has one – no matter how weak..." I interrupted her, excitement flowing through like my blood would have had my heart beat.

"I will wake her, Amelie. If she has a pulse, I will wake her!"

I hung up on her suddenly and flashed up the stairs. Lifting the photo off of the wall, I pressed the button that allowed entrance to Amelie's secret room and charged up the small set of stairs that led to the gigantic space.

"Myrnin?" Eve asked. She had clearly been asleep before I came back into the room and looked extremely annoyed.

"Claire may still be alive," I told her, leaving her in suspense as I made my way toward them. "Shane still has a pulse, weak but sure, and I need to see if Claire still has one, too."

"You mean she might still be alive?" Eve demanded with a smile spread across her face. This was the type of excitement that showed just how much you cared.

"Don't get your hopes up, but the longer we chat the longer I'm not checking Claire's pulse."

She nodded vigorously and kept quiet as I stepped closer and bent down. I could see how pale she was getting, how utterly dead she looked, but when I placed my fingers on her neck, I could feel the gentle beat of her heart.

**Amelie's POV**

Awaking a young man from the almost dead was a tricky task; I didn't want to hurt him, although, I reckoned that hurting him was better than letting him die.

So I slapped him across the face – restraining myself slightly – and watched as the blood rushed to the surface. That was certainly a good sign. And an even better sign was the gasp of air that Shane breathed in suddenly.

"Shane?" I whispered as the relief flooded through me – if Shane was alive, then Claire may be also.

"Why did you have to slap me? What happened to ancient grace?" he wasn't any different from before, which was another good sign. The collapsing hadn't affected him in any way.

"I was conflicting with myself whether to hit you with a stake or my hand, be grateful that I went with the latter."

"Right now, I'm grateful to be alive. So, thanks."

Maybe the collapse had affected him.

**Shane's POV**

Amelie and I raced to the Glass House as fast as we could. The battle in the Elders' Council Building sounded like it had faded; only two people seemed to scream per minute which was definitely a good sign, or a bad depending on which way you looked at it.

I couldn't honestly believe that I was still alive. I had watched Sam die, and lived through it, but when the feeling of darkness had washed over me, I had believed that that was it, that everything was away to go.

Fortunately, Amelie had gotten me out of the horrible trance (if you could call it that) and brought me back to life – because if she hadn't, I imagined that I would have been dead at this very moment.

Amelie had summarised Claire's situation before we left, and I couldn't describe how much I hated my human body at this point. Amelie – although travelling at an inhuman speed – slowed her pace slightly. I was strangely thankful to her, she had saved my life, and we were on our way to save Claire's.

The Glass House eventually came into view and my normally human pace sped up to something I hadn't believed that I was capable of.

We arrived barely a minute later and sprinted into the living room. It was empty, not a single human being (or vampire) in sight. I thought for a second and realised that she had probably wanted to be in her room.

But when we reached her room, we discovered that she was not there. So Amelie then thought for a second and we found Myrnin, Eve and a living, breathing Claire in Amelie's secret room.

"Claire," I said.

"Shane," she breathed.

We just looked at each other for a second and then she stood and ran – or stumbled – to me as I ran to her.

"Are you okay?" I asked her as I held her in a tight embrace.

"Just shocked, we're still here. Shane, we're not dead!"

We burst out laughing in each other's arms but did not break away, instead, we held on tighter, our laughs being muffled by each of our shoulders.

She was alive, and so was I. It was obvious that what I felt toward Amelie for saving my life, Claire would feel toward Myrnin. I hated that thought, so I just pushed it away as I reunited with the love of my life.

And after a minute, I heard a cry. Not the type of sob that you would hear if you had lost a parent, the type of sob that you would let free as you adapted to life.


	35. Chapter 35

**Chapter 35 – Change of Plans**

**Claire's POV**

I didn't know whether I wanted to turn around or not, yet I knew that the temptation would eventually overcome my doubts and I would instinctively turn to see my baby girl.

I hadn't looked at her all that much, considering she had been porcelain white and looking as dead as a doornail, but now that I heard the cry I couldn't help wanting to hold her the way that only a mother could.

I was there in seconds, kneeling beside the baby that was wrapped up in a blanket. Wait a minute...

"Why did you wrap her in a blue blanket?" I asked Eve and Myrnin, not that it mattered but I had imagined a pink blanket.

"Because _he _is not a _her_. You have a baby boy."

I looked at Amelie with confusion lifting my features. "The dream said that we would have a girl," I told her.

"The dreams aren't always accurate; your hopes usually influence the dreams when it comes to the details that they can't be certain of."

I nodded my head in understanding and looked back at my baby boy – at Shane's baby boy – with the biggest smile forming on my face.

"What's his name?" Shane whispered in my ear as he kneeled down beside me and balanced his left arm on my shoulder.

"I don't know yet. I always imagined us with a girl; we already knew what her name would be. Let's wait until everything calms down, I'm sure we will have a name figured out then."

"Good idea," he smiled, and that smile told me everything that he could not put in to words.

"Michael isn't even here!" Eve exclaimed, "He's still fighting in that stupid battle that doesn't have any meaning now that Sam's dead!"

"You are right," Amelie stated instantly. "We should go back to the Elders' Council Building and tell everyone to go home. There is no further reason to fight."

I picked up the baby boy and held him in my arms, kissing his forehead gently to silence his cries. As I had dreamed before, his eyes were a deep-Shane-looking brown, and the small amount of hair that was on his head was auburn. He looked just like the baby in my dream, and I realised that it was the same baby, just a different name – whatever that may be.

"No, Claire," Shane told me as he placed his hands on my shoulders and led me to the sofa. "You are going to stay right here with our baby, so that you're safe."

"No, Shane," I mimicked, "We will be coming with you, won't we baby boy?" As if on cue the child that I held in my arms giggled.

"If we were in a normal town, you would be lying in a hospital bed, sleeping after giving birth... And our child would be in a sterilized hospital where it could learn to breathe like a normal newly-born baby."

"We're coming. It doesn't matter where we are, it's not safe anywhere."

"You're not going to back down, are you?" Shane asked me, but there was no hint of a smile on his face.

"Are you mad at me?"

"I could never be mad at you, no matter how hard I try." He embraced me and the baby and planted a light kiss on both of our foreheads.

"We should be on our way," Amelie said.

**Michael's POV**

I'd lost sight of the others a while ago, and I had been looking endlessly for them all throughout the Elders' Council Building – although, I had no such luck in finding them. Still searching, I bumped into a very angry Morley Danvers.

"Ah, another one of them! Where is Amelie?" he demanded, and then continued with, "and where is the young boy that was with her?"

"I don't know, I've been looking everywhere for them myself. Why are you looking for them?"

"Let's just say that they managed to get themselves in to my bad books and I'm looking to get revenge," he said with complete sincerity. "Did they not tell you where they were headed?"

"No, but if they had, you would be one of the last people I would confide in. We're on different sides of this fight, why are you stopping to chat?"

"I'm bored, I guess. I haven't killed anyone in a while."

I took a small step back and stated, "Well, I'm not volunteering."

He sighed and rolled his eyes in an overly dramatic gesture, "If I had wanted to kill you, you would be dead."

"So that would mean that you _don't_ want to kill me?"

Before he had the chance to reply, a choir of voices sounded through the corridors. I made my way to the hall (with a very Myrnin-like Morley following behind) and when I reached my destination I found Amelie and Eve and Myrnin and Shane and Claire... and a baby.

"Is that..?" I asked Claire. I couldn't finish the sentence as my thoughts overlapped and I considered exactly what I was seeing.

"Ah, Amelie and the boy, you both left me earlier in quite a state. I told you to stay put. Wait a second..." He stared at the child in Claire's arms with a shocked expression. "The only way that this is possible... No, this is not possible."

"Actually, Morley, it is," Amelie said sadly, "You're brother plunged a silver stake into his heart and begged me to pull it out, he asked me to be the one to end his life. You may not believe me, but it is the truth."

"And this baby was just magically born?"

"If you want to call science magical, go ahead," Shane remarked.

"The last time I saw you all together there were two more people with you all. Where have they disappeared to?"

The expressions that followed told me all that I needed to know. They didn't know where Oliver was, or Miranda, and I had searched the entire Elders' Council Building, so they definitely weren't anywhere here.

So where could they be?


	36. Chapter 36

**Chapter 36 – An Unexpected Event**

**Amelie's POV**

I had noticed the absence of both Oliver and Miranda before, although, I had figured that they were both still fighting. Now that I gave it more thought, there was a maximum of eight fights still taking place, and not one of them consisted of either Oliver or Miranda.

They could have left looking for us – individually, of course – or they each may have gotten in to an extremely heated fight and decided to take their opponent outside.

Whether these options were – in fact – the case or not, none of us had any idea of their possible whereabouts and Michael had informed me that they were most definitely not in the building. So the only way that we were to find them was to start looking.

First and foremost, we all knew that this battle had to stop – there was no reason to be fighting anymore.

I stood at the front of the hall as if I was away to deliver a speech to a hall of Morganville citizens and not a hall of battling opponents.

"Ladies and gentlemen," I made sure that my voice was audible to the people still fighting. Everyone in the room stopped to look over at me with faces of confusion and exhaustion. "I have an important update for you all. To all of Sam Danvers's followers, Sam is now dead. I ask you all to stop fighting, this is now a pointless war that neither side will win unless we end it now and call a truce."

A man about twice my height sauntered over and stood directly in front of me. It seemed as if he wished to intimidate me, however, I was not that easily swayed. His hair looked as if it used to be brown, but it had turned grey with age. As he spoke, his red eyes started to fade.

"Sam's dead?" I nodded my head sympathetically, but he just looked at me with hatred in his eyes. "Did you kill him?"

I didn't know how to reply, although, I decided quickly that the truth was the only thing that would help in this particular situation. "He asked me to end his suffering. The silver stake that he held in his hand had been the stake that he had plunged in to his own heart; nonetheless, I had been the one to withdraw it and allow the silver nitrate to flood his bloodstream. That is the truth, and I hope you realise how sorry I am."

"You're not sorry, you're loving this!" The red returned, stronger this time.

"I am surprised myself at the empathy that I feel after what has happened, but I am certainly not loving this. He was my first love, and no matter how my hatred grew for him over the years, watching him die in front of my eyes and knowing that it had been me who had finished the task is one of the worst things on this earth." I breathed in deeply, closing my eyes tightly to hold in the tears.

"I am sorry," he said with eyes of sincerity, "I am just upset."

"And why would that be?" I asked him, knowing fine well that loyalty would never run this deep in someone like him.

"Because I am his son."

"Excuse me?" I demanded.

"He was my father; he saved me from a family that I did not agree with when I was quite young."

"So he was an adoptive father?" I asked.

He shook his head, "Not at all. I made sure to get blood tests before I believed anything that he said. When I discovered the truth, he made me promise to tell no one, not even his own family, and I kept that promise."

"Did he never ask to turn you in to a vampire?"

"Yes, but I refused. I wanted to live my life like a regular person, even if that meant being a man with ten times more baggage than the usual. He respected my decision and allowed me to live a long and happy life."

"He was locked in a Crypt for most of _his _life, how are you still here?"

"It was you that locked him in the Crypt, was it not?" I nodded my head in reply, and he smiled sympathetically at me. "He got out only a few days later, him and his followers, and they found a home in Italy."

"He escaped the Crypt a few days later? I don't understand. If he had managed to escape, why hadn't he hunted me down? Why hadn't he gotten his revenge?"

"Because at the time he still loved you, mother."

I instantly looked into his eyes and saw the recognition. I hadn't planned on saying anything about the fact that he was my son, but I guess I couldn't continue like that any longer.

"He always did, he just grew more and more out of his mind as time passed. He did turn me eventually; I had started a family of my own beforehand. I had married a beautiful woman and had two girls and one boy, but my wife had died of a heart attack when the oldest was just eight and the youngest only three. I had been a coward and left them with strangers – not the way you had, when you left me you had done it for me, not yourself. When I had grown older and realised that I had nothing to live for, I had travelled to Italy and found Sam. That was when he had turned me, that is why I am still alive."

I didn't know what to say or do, and neither did anyone else in the room. The realisation that there was an audience watching hit me and I turned away from my son, and then I turned back to face him.

"What is your name?" I asked.

"Henry Danvers."

I nodded and turned back again to the audience, "Can you all please go home, and to the followers of Samuel Danvers, please stay in this hall. You," I said to Myrnin, Claire, Shane, Eve, Michael and Morley, "Over here."

As they walked over, I turned to Henry. "Why didn't you die when your first child was born?" I asked him.

"Excuse me?"

"There was a curse that said the first of the Danvers bloodline after the vampire Sam Danvers who was introduced to the vampire world would lose the privilege to have a child, and that if they did, the child would be stillborn and the mother and father would both die along with the baby."

"Maybe there was no curse."

"No curse?" I heard Claire ask from behind me. "Then why was I still thin at seven months pregnant? Why did the baby come early and still survive when he had been in there with no room to grow?"

"Who are you?"

"I am Claire Danvers, your really great-granddaughter – nice to meet you. Anyway, back to the curse. I went through all sorts of stress as I discovered that I would die – along with both the love of my life and my beautiful baby – and it was all for nothing?"

"It wasn't for nothing. If you were still thin when your baby was born then I'm surprised your child is still alive. Well, I assume that the baby you are holding is yours."

"Yes, it is."

"What's his name?"

"I'm not sure yet."

"Well, be sure to tell me when you figure it out."

She nodded her head and smiled what looked like a genuinely confused smile, and then she stepped back to stand beside Shane as she realised that Henry couldn't help to answer her questions.

I noticed Morley standing at the back of the group with surprise written across his face. Henry turned to see it, too, and his eyes turned apologetic. "I wanted to tell you, Morley. I really did."

Morley seemed even more stunned, and the group of people standing in front of him moved aside so as to make a path that led to Henry.

He walked forward so he was standing directly in front of Henry.

"You're my nephew?" he asked him.

"Yes, I am."

"But I always thought of you as a best friend figure."

"Keep thinking like that, this fact should change nothing between us. You're my cool Uncle Morley; you just never knew it before."

Morley hesitated before reaching his arms around his nephew's shoulders. When he let go, he was smiling.

"Why did Sam ask you to end his life if he knew that the curse didn't exist?" Shane asked me.

"He was losing his mind more with each passing second, you heard what he said. At that point, there had been no hope."

A tear fell from Morley's eye and, unfortunately for him, everyone saw it before he wiped it away.

"Was it a happy tear, or a sad one?" Eve asked him, and he looked at her with an expression of surprise.

"I think it was both."

**Claire's POV**

Amelie called a truce between Sam's ex-followers and the Morganville citizens. The truce had said that Sam's followers would be allowed to stay in Morganville, but that there would be no trouble at all from either the usual Morganville residents or the new one's that were to join us.

After it was all figured out, which took about an hour at the most, we decided to start searching for Oliver and Miranda.

As Michael had told us before, neither of them were anywhere in the building, so we began our search outside.

Splitting up in two groups – one group containing Morley, Myrnin and Michael, and the other containing Amelie, Shane, Eve and myself and the baby – my group began its search on Lot Street. The others started looking in Founder's Square.

"Where would Oliver go?" Shane asked, "I'd ask that question about Miranda but we don't know all that much about her."

"Oliver wouldn't go anywhere, that's the problem," Amelie replied, "He would have still been in the Elders' Council Building quarrelling with Sam and his followers until we got there. Instead, he is nowhere to be found."

"Chances are that they would both be somewhere in Founder's Square, so really we're just wasting our time here," Eve pointed out.

"They could be anywhere, but for what reason we are yet to discover. Anyway, this endless chatter is of no help, let's just stay silent."

"What if we see Oliver?" Eve asked.

"Then I give you permission to make noise."

There was silence for almost a minute before Shane called, "I see him!"

Amelie instantly turned to him, but before she got her hopes up she saw his smiling face.

"No, it was just an armadillo, my bad." He raised his arms in surrender as Amelie stared at him with a devilish expression.

Eve and I started laughing when the baby gave a little giggle and turned to pull Amelie's hair. When he grabbed hold, Amelie smiled slightly as well and turned to look at his face. Then the small smile expanded.

**Michael's POV**

I was beginning to regret offering to join the group of Morley and Myrnin, but we had all decided that Claire wouldn't be in the best position were their group attacked – considering she was carrying a baby with her – so I kindly offered to be with someone I barely knew and someone that I knew was crazy.

We didn't talk all that much – and when I say 'we' I mean 'I'. Morley and Myrnin bickered, spoke and sang the whole way through our little journey to find Oliver and Miranda. It was interestingly annoying.

"Would you mind being quieter?" I asked them.

"Young men can be so incredibly serious, can't they Myrnin?" Morley said in a very sing-song voice.

"Yes they can, Morley, yes they can."

It turned out that the one I barely knew was as crazy as the one I did – and I hadn't even known that was possible. I had once thought that he was quite serious, but it must have been the affect of his brother.

As they continued to sing and bicker and speak, I followed behind heaving a dramatic sigh.

**Claire's POV**

We had been searching for what felt like days – although, it had only been a couple of hours – and we had found nothing.

Not only that, but the baby started to cry.

"Auw, it's okay. Guys, I think BB's hungry."

"BB?" Shane asked me.

"Well, I thought that since we hadn't figured out a name we could call him BB, as in Baby Boy."

He smiled at me and nodded his head, "That sounds like a plan."

"Yeah, anyway, he's _hungry_."

"Well, we should probably be getting back to the others at the meeting place," Amelie said, "However, if you wish to take your child home and feed him then you may."

Shane looked at me with an awkward expression and asked a question with just his eyes – impressive!

"Yes, Shane."

He nodded his head and sucked in a deep breath, and then let it out as he shivered dramatically.

I rolled my eyes.

"I'll just go alone, there's no point in..." Shane interrupted me.

"You're not doing that again. Amelie, _we_ will take that offer and take the time to feed BB at home."

Amelie inclined her head and we turned around.

"Guys," Eve whispered loudly, "I don't think I'm ready to be alone with the Ice Queen."

We laughed at the look that Amelie shot her way and began to walk back to the Glass House.

**Shane's POV**

The unspoken question that I had asked Claire received a spoken answer, and I couldn't help shiver as I thought how it would have been to be a girl.

I mean, it wouldn't have been too bad, well, that would depend on whether I was Monica, Eve or Claire – the three different female species that I knew of so far. Popular, Goth, Geek... That was it in a girl's world. Not that I was calling Claire a geek... I didn't mean... Okay, I didn't say it out loud, and even if I had, Claire probably wouldn't have minded all that much. I loved her just the way she was.

Well, that was me off the hook, even though I was never on it.

"Are you sure you want to breastfeed?" I asked her. "I could easily run to the shop and grab a box of dry milk."

"I'm sure, Shane. Don't worry; _you_ don't need to do it."

Well, that was a relief.

**Claire's POV**

After BB was fed and settled, Shane and I sat in the living room not knowing what to do.

"We're staying here," Shane told me, "They'll phone us if they find them, or if they need us. Right now we need to stay here with BB."

"You're right," I replied. I lay my head against his shoulder and felt his arm rest on the couch behind my head.

"We've not done this in a while, just me and you," he said.

"That's what Eve and I were saying earlier, just before I gave birth and everything. We're not going to have this for a while, none of us are. We have a baby to take care of now."

"We'll always have this, even if you were half way across the world, we would always have this."

I turned my head to look at him and it just so happened that his lips were in the place that mine ended up. Without warning he pulled me on his lap and gave me the longest and sweetest kiss...

And then there was a cry from upstairs.

We pulled apart and I laughed at the irritated expression on Shane's face. I kissed him quickly on the cheek before hopping off his lap and making my way up the stairs.

"Are you sure he's sleeping?" Shane asked as I kissed BB lightly on his forehead, "I want to be certain this time."

"I'm sure."

"Well then, where were we?" He said as he placed his hands on either side of my face and lost me in a heart-warming kiss.

A ring broke off the kiss and Shane moaned with frustration.

"Do we never get a break around here?"

I ran downstairs and grabbed my phone before it went to voicemail.

"Hello?" I said.

"Claire? It's Eve. We found Oliver."

"Where was he?" I asked.

"He was in the Elders' Council Building."

"Eve, are you okay?"

"Claire, he's dead."


	37. Chapter 37

**Chapter 37 – Baby Names**

**Claire's POV**

We had no choice but to wake BB before we left for Founder's Square. I whimpered at the level of noise he produced as he cried and screamed for bed, but when he realised that that wasn't an option at that particular moment in time, he seemed to calm down.

We had to jog all the way to Founder's Square – fast enough that we would get there on time and slow enough that the baby was secure in my arms.

It was fifteen minutes after Eve's phone call by the time we got there, and standing outside the Elders' Council Building was a crowd full of people – both Morganville citizens and Sam's followers. They parted as we reached them and made a path that led us straight to the door.

Inside we found Amelie, Eve, Morley, Myrnin, Michael... and Oliver. He lay on the floor with a stake in his heart.

"Oh," I breathed at the same time as Shane gulped audibly, "Shane, can you hold BB?"

He nodded and took the baby out of my arms. I walked over to where Amelie kneeled beside Oliver. She was crying.

"Are you okay?" I asked, but before she could answer I added, "That was a stupid question, of course you're not."

She smiled at me, but the pain in her eyes was purely obvious.

"I thought you said you hadn't seen him," I said to Michael.

"He hadn't been fighting, and I had assumed that if I were to see Oliver, he would be fighting." He looked at Oliver's dead body. "I guess I was wrong."

"What do we do now?" I asked after an awkward silence.

"We do exactly what I did when I first founded this town," Amelie said, "We take it day by day, and we help each other. There is going to be a larger population with Sam's followers now joining our community, we are going to have to figure out some new ways to work with things. Until everything is settled, there isn't much to do."

"Are we going to give Oliver a funeral?" I asked.

"Of course we are. He needs to know that we cared for him – all in different ways, of course," she added, glancing toward Shane and then to Eve.

I looked away from Oliver. "Do you know who killed him?" I asked.

"He probably just got into a fight with the wrong person."

"If by the wrong person you mean me," a familiar feminine voice chirped from behind us, "Then you are very much correct."

"Miranda!" we all exclaimed – all except Morley, who hadn't seemed to put all the pieces together yet.

"Yes. When I found my lovely Sam lying on the floor of a random house, I came back here for revenge. Oliver was the only person available."

"So you killed him?" Eve demanded.

"Well, obviously."

"I have so many things swirling around in my head right now," Eve began, "but I won't say any because not one of them are appropriate things to say in front of a baby!"

"Well, that's not very nice!" Miranda said in a voice that dripped of sarcasm and amusement.

"Says the one who just killed someone out of cold blood," Michael stated.

In a flash, Amelie was behind Miranda and holding her in a terrifying grip.

"Come on, Amelie, kill me!" Miranda shouted, "You know you want to."

"I shall not kill you, you fool! That isn't punishment enough for killing the joint leader of this town. Instead, you will face years of torment and misery, waiting for that fateful day when there is nothing left – just darkness."

Miranda's eyes gleamed with worry but she quickly recovered and laughed as if she had no care in the world. "Oh, dear Amelie, you don't compare even slightly to the stories that Sam always told me. I preferred that Amelie, she was must less fragile when it came to the loss of her lovers."

Shane laughed and Myrnin said what we were all thinking, "In no way is Amelie fragile or lenient or any of those things that you seem to think."

"That's what she does. She makes you trust her so that you don't see all of the little things that she does to make your life misery. Isn't that right, Amelie?"

"That is certainly not, Miranda, and we both know that the words that you speak are never completely true." Amelie pulled Miranda's head back further, making her scream in pain, and looked over to us. "Find people from outside that are willing to take this one to Morganville's prison, make sure at least one of them knows where it is."

I stayed with Shane and the baby as the others left to do what Amelie had asked of them.

"Are you okay?" Shane asked me.

"I..." I broke down and tears began to spill from my eyes.

"It's okay, Claire," Shane told me.

"But it's not! We've gone through so much stuff in this town but we haven't ever lost anyone. Oliver's gone, Shane, and not just away on Holiday in Las Vegas. He's _dead_."

Shane didn't have a response for that, and I wouldn't have had one either had I been in his position. I'd thought I was fine after what had happened – well, as fine as I could be – but it turns out that I was completely wrong.

BB was sleeping, and I decided that it was time for me to do the same. After all, I had used up a lot of energy giving birth and all.

"I'm going to go home, put BB to bed and take forty winks."

"Do you want me to come with you?" he asked kindly, although, it sounded as though he knew what his answer was going to be.

Instead of answering the way I had the past few days, I looked at him and nodded.

Before we left, we made sure to get Amelie's permission, but she told us that we didn't need any permission. Although, considering the fact that we lived in Morganville, we would always need permission.

**Amelie's POV**

After Claire and Shane left with their little boy, the others returned with four vampires. Two I knew – one was a Morganville resident called Charlie and another was my son – but the other two were clearly two of Sam's followers that I hadn't met before.

"I assume that you have all been informed of what you must do." They nodded in response. "Very well, please continue."

I stood aside to allow them past, but Henry stayed beside me for a moment longer. "I'm sorry about your friend," he said.

"I am, too."

When Miranda was gone and it was just me and the usual familiar faces left – excluding Claire and Shane – I sat on the floor beside Oliver and watched his pale face as he lay dead with a stake in his heart.

**Claire's POV**

BB fell asleep no problem at all, and Shane and I cuddled up in Shane's bed with a laptop.

"Was it this one?" he asked me.

"No, it was wooden, not steel. And it was white, not grey."

"I didn't witness this dream, and you're not exactly giving me much information to go on here."

"You're right. You know what, just get that one."

"But you said that that wasn't the one in the dream," he said.

"I know, but I'm starting to realise that the specific details of the dream are trivial, it's the point of the dream that's important."

"And what was the point?"

"The point was that we were happy, so whatever will make us happy is what will make our dream real."

He smiled and kissed me lightly on the lips, "Then this one it is." After clicking the left button on the track pad, a notice came up to notify us that the purchase was complete. Shutting the laptop and pushing it aside, Shane rolled over so that he was looking down at me.

"Hello, my lovely lady."

I rolled over again and ended up above Shane.

"Hello, my handsome man."

He smiled at me and took my hair out of the ponytail that it was in. It fell down past my shoulders and down past Shane's ears, the ends tickling his face.

"Wow, my hair is long!"

"Well, we haven't exactly had time to take a trip to the hairdresser," he remarked.

I smirked.

He knocked away my arms that I had placed at either side of him and I fell right on top of him.

"That's better," he said before rolling over once again and ending up back above me.

"Shane?"

"Yes."

"What do you think about the name Oliver?"

He looked in to my eyes and let go of a silent laugh. "I think that it's a great name."

"Oliver Danvers Collins," I said.

"We should call him Oliver Collins Danvers so that the initials make O.C.D!" he joked.

"Let's stick with Danvers Collins, I don't hate my child."

"Give it a few weeks," he teased, and he completed the joke with a wink.


	38. Chapter 38

**Chapter 38 – The Funeral**

**Claire's POV**

I stood in front of the mirror in the bathroom and applied my usual amount of mascara and eyeliner. I'd quarrelled with myself previous to that moment about whether or not to wear it, considering the fact that I was going to a dead friend's funeral and quite a number of the people there were most likely to be crying – and that would most certainly make me cry – and as everybody knows, when you cry while wearing mascara and eyeliner, you get panda eyes... It was common sense! Although, I was surprised that I didn't look like that anyway considering the long nights I'd had with looking after baby Oliver. I thought logically and decided that to both look nice and be able to cry without looking like a terrible wrestler, I needed to use waterproof mascara – how original!

That's how it was now, making stupid jokes to ourselves to lighten the mood as much as we could. It had been eight days since we found Oliver in the Elders' Council Building with Miranda's stake in his heart, and I was actually glad to have the added job of looking after the baby. If I hadn't had baby Oliver to keep me on my feet, I didn't know what I would have been like over the past few torturous days.

I didn't want to take Oliver with us to the funeral, but I knew that there was nobody I trusted who wouldn't be going to the funeral that could look after him at home – and I had to pay my respects. Looking at him as he slept in his carrier, I hoped that he would be okay until it was all over.

I heard a knock at the bathroom door and jumped, which resulted in dropping my mascara in the sink. Sighing heavily, I rested my hands against the edge of the basin and looked at myself in the mirror – I was pale, like ghost pale, and my pink pyjamas didn't help in the slightest.

"Come in," I mumbled as I tried to get myself together and picked up the fallen mascara brush.

When Eve came through the door, she instantly gasped and reclosed the door behind her before running over to me.

"Claire, you know how I'm Goth?" she spoke really fast, but I was used to that by now.

"Yeah..." Of course I knew; what kind of stupid question was that? I did live with her!

"Well, you look as white as I do with my makeup on. Honestly, you're making me feel tanned!" She still had on her morning face – which made her look so much younger than when she covered her face in gothic makeup – but having _her _tell _me _that I looked Goth was quite terrifying.

"Are you sure? Maybe it's just the light."

"No, CB, I'm sure."

I took another deep breath and decided to ignore her. With the mascara brush in my hand, I finished off with the makeup side of things and took the baby carrier in my hand. I started walking to the bathroom door so that I could go and get changed in my room.

"Clean up the sink, would you?" I asked Eve, "Slight mascara spillage."

That was an understatement.

"This one, or this one?" I asked.

"Um, that one, it's shorter."

"Come on, Shane, take this seriously! This one, or this one?"

"I cannot _believe_ that you're asking _him _for fashion advice when I'm just a walk down the hall!" Eve yelled as she sauntered into the room all dressed and with all makeup applied – today's colour theme was a greyish blue, probably a way to signify grief along with the black that signified death. "You," she barked at Shane, "Should be on your way. We have things to do," she said in a sing-song voice.

"I'm not ready!" he protested.

"And considering that your outfit is in _your _room, you won't be ready for a long while if you keep hanging around here!"

He rolled his eyes and looked over to me with a questioning face.

"Go," I said as I walked over to him, "I'll be ready when you knock on the door." I kissed him on the cheek but he took hold of my elbows and moved his lips to mine. I laughed as I heard Eve's dramatic sigh behind us – this was really bugging her – and by the way that Shane's mouth twitched upward as he continued with the same dizzying kiss, he'd heard it too, and he found it extremely funny.

To be honest, I did too.

"Okay, okay, okay. Too strong showings of affection, I'm standing right here."

"Yes, in Claire's bedroom. It's not like we're standing on the street and putting on a show for the neighbours."

I grinned at Shane for a second before preparing myself to look completely serious as I turned back to Eve.

"You finished?" she asked us.

"He was just leaving," I replied.

Before he left, Shane gave a small bow and took Eve's hand and gently placed a kiss in the centre. Then he turned to me and took my hand just as he had Eve's and placed another gentle kiss on my hand, dragging it out slightly longer than he had with Eve.

"Goodbye... goodbye... goodbye," he recited the finishing lyrics from the song "Goodbye" from The Sound of Music. His voice didn't reach the high note on the last goodbye and I tried not to laugh.

"What's wrong with you?" I asked Eve after Shane left.

"What's wrong with me? What is wrong with me is the two outfits you are choosing from, they look like woolly jumpers!"

"They aren't that bad!" I argued back.

"No, but _these_," she said, taking two dresses from behind her back, "are much better."

"How long have you been holding them?" I asked, staring at the amazing dresses she held. One was a soft silk material, but it was the other one that I was more drawn to. It was long enough to stretch to my knees, and had a beautiful lace the entire way through it, although it wasn't see through. There was also a sparkle weaving through the lacy pattern.

"Well, it depends whether you mean 'how long have I been holding on to them' or 'how long have I been holding them'."

Okay, I was officially confused.

"What?" I asked as my face distorted and showed a bamboozled expression.

"Huh," she sighed, "It doesn't matter. Let's just get you looking amazing for this funeral."

And as soon as she said that last word, it turned slightly awkward.

She repeated again, "Well, let's just get you looking amazing."

**Shane's POV**

I looked in the cupboard and realised that I had nothing to wear for the funeral. I mean, I had looked at stuff on the internet, stuff in shops, stuff in general, but I hadn't actually had time to buy anything.

I poked my head through the door and took a quick glance toward the side of the corridor that I knew Claire and Eve were. When I saw that it was clear, I jogged silently out of the room and turned the way that I was headed... And bumped straight in to Michael, who was standing outside of his door with a questioning expression on his face.

"What?" I demanded quietly, but before he could reply in a very normal, very audible voice, I shook my head and held my index finger up to my lips. Then I dragged him along the corridor to his bedroom.

Shutting the door, I said, "That's a really nice shirt and tie that you're wearing."

"Um, thanks. What's going on?" he asked.

"Well, I was wondering if there was any chance that you had one spare."

"And why would you need to know that?" His eyebrows were now raised.

"I, sort of, forgot to buy an outfit for the funeral."

"How could you forget?" he demanded.

"Have you got one or not?"

He sighed and shook his head before turning toward his cupboard.

"This one was always too big for me, so it might fit you," he said, handing me a coat hanger.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Do you want the suit or not?"

I rolled my eyes and took the outfit out of his hand.

"Thanks," I said before turning and leaving the room.

**Claire's POV**

_Knock_. _Knock_. _Knock_.

"Wait a minute!" Eve shouted to the door and put the last kirby grip in my hair. "Okay, you're ready."

"Finally," I breathed, and the strands of hair that Eve had left to dangle at either side of my face flew up as I let out my breath.

Eve laughed and shook her head at me as she walked over to the bedroom door.

When Shane looked at me, his face took on an expression of awe.

"Wow."

"No time for that now, let's go!" Eve called, "Wait, is that Michael's suit?" She shook her head and seemed to push the problem away with her hand. Taking my arm, she dragged us down the stairs and to the front door.

Michael sat in the front of Eve's new giant car and Shane and I sat in the back.

"You look beautiful," Shane whispered in my ear after the car's engine had started.

"You don't look too shabby yourself," I whispered back.

I snuggled into him as he rested his arm on my right shoulder.

"You ready?" he asked.

"As ready as I'll ever be," I answered.

We sat like that in silence for the entire ride to the church, and when it finally came into view, I started to regret ever leaving the house.

**Amelie's POV**

My surroundings reminded me of Sam's funeral – Sam Glass's, of course – and I realised how identical these situations were. Love wasn't an emotion that I was usually allowed for a long length of time, it always ended in heartbreak and death. At least this time I knew that I had been with him for a while before... everything happened.

"Amelie?" I heard Claire say from behind me. I hadn't even realised that they were here.

I turned on my heels and wrapped her in my arms. The tears that I had expected to fall didn't, I managed to hold them back.

"Can everyone please be seated?" I heard Father Joe's voice say after a while, and when I looked up I discovered a room full of people ranging from human children to vampire Elders. I smiled at them all.

"Let's get started, shall we?"

**Claire's POV**

There was a surprising amount of people that came to the funeral, and a surprising number of people who spoke about their involvements with Oliver before he died – and they even left out the bad occurrences that had clearly happened between them. It wasn't an open casket, so not many people stood by the coffin, but there were certainly a large number of people there.

To sum it up, I could imagine that if Oliver were here, he would be looking smug (more smug than usual, and that said something).

At the end of the funeral, after everyone had left, it was just us – Amelie, Eve, Shane, Michael and Myrnin – sitting at the front of the church hall staring at the picture of Oliver that was framed and leaning beside the casket.

I hadn't noticed before, but Henry had snuck in just before the event had started. When I saw him, he reminded me of something.

I looked at the baby that slept in the carrier in front of me and said to everyone, "We named the baby."

They all looked at me but Amelie was the first to say, "Well?"

I turned my head to face her and smiled, "Oliver, baby Oliver."

She smiled back and we all laughed.

How smug would he have been now?

**Two Weeks Later – Claire's POV**

I woke up to the sound of my door slamming closed. I moaned and turned on my side to face the person that walked in.

Shane.

"Why are you up?" I asked.

"Because it's twelve o'clock, and you aren't ready yet."

"Ready for what?"

"I know we've been through a lot in the past few weeks, but please tell me that you didn't forget about our honeymoon."

"Actually, I had."


	39. Chapter 39

**Chapter 39 – The Finale**

**Claire's POV**

My face glistened in the bathroom mirror as I imagined a beautiful holiday resort in Hawaii – or somewhere like that. I wasn't getting my hopes up though; chances were that we would end up at Blackpool Pleasure Beach in England, which I had been told was quite a nice place from my old friend Elizabeth.

When we were best friends back in high school, she and her family would go to Blackpool every year in summer. She would always arrive back, run to my house and tell me everything that they did. I always laughed at the photos of her on the waterslides... Priceless!

Maybe we wouldn't be going there; maybe it would be somewhere beautiful, like Tenerife or Florida. Wherever it was, I was sure I would like it. Shane had made it a surprise for a reason, he wouldn't disappoint.

"Claire! You ready?" Shane shouted up.

"Almost," I yelled back down as I left the bathroom and jogged through to my bedroom.

I continued at the same speed and reached the cot two seconds later.

"Hiya, Ollie," I said, and he giggled at me as I made funny faces above his cot. He was two weeks old now and already he had grown from the tiny baby that I had held in my arms. "You better miss me while I'm gone, but you probably won't miss me as much as I'll miss you."

"Mama," he spoke, and I jumped in surprise.

Running to the stairs, I shouted down to Shane.

"What? What's wrong?" he demanded as he entered the room. I held Oliver in my arms and smiled at the concerned Shane.

"Nothing's wrong, Shane. He just..." but before I could finish my sentence, I was interrupted by my two week year old baby.

"Daddy."

"Now, that is _not _possible," Shane stated as he walked over to stand behind us.

"No, it's most definitely not. But it seems that our child has made it possible. You heard it yourself," I turned to Ollie, "Will you say it again?"

His eyes looked at me, but his moment in the spotlight seemed to be over. He stayed quiet as he fell asleep in my arms.

"It's seems that we've got ourselves a little baby genius here," I said.

"I wonder where he gets it from," Shane smiled.

I laughed as I looked from him to the baby and back and forth.

"What?" Shane asked me as I glanced around the bedroom.

"This was what it was like in the dream. The only difference was that the walls were yellow, not blue." We'd decided when we were looking for baby stuff to make it original instead of copying the dream to ensure that we live the same life that had been planned. We'd lived our lives taking risks; we were used to it by now. Instead of yellow and white, the room was blue and white. Instead of having a baby girl, we had a beautiful baby boy.

"Are you ready to leave?" Shane asked me.

"I don't think I would ever be _ready _to leave here, but I suppose we'll get used to it once we're gone. And we'll slot right back in when we come back."

"Of course, everyone here loves us!" he exclaimed.

"First of all, dream on. Second of all, shut up or you'll wake the baby!"

"So, you're ready now?"

"As ready as I'll ever be, I guess."

"Well then," he said as I placed a sleeping Oliver back in his cot, "Let's get going."

I sighed, "See you later, bedroom. See you later, Ollie."

"I'll miss you," Eve sniffled at the entrance/exit to Morganville. "Have fun."

"I'll miss you, too. You won't even be here when we get back!" I exclaimed. Shane and I were going away for two weeks, and so were Eve and Michael. Eve and Michael were leaving two days before we got back. "Do you know where he's taking you?"

"Paris," she pronounced in a French accent, "You?"

"No, it's a surprise," I told her.

"Auw, that's sweet!" she squealed.

"Not when you could be getting dragged to only God-knows where, but I'm sure I'll love it!"

"Of course you will, otherwise he wouldn't have chosen to take you... wherever he's taking you."

"Definitely. Remember, he needs fed at six o'clock, twelve o'clock, four o'clock..."

"Claire, I know! I can't tell you how many times you've enumerated that over and over and over again."

"Okay, what toy does he need?"

"Betsy the Bear," she recited.

"Pillow?"

"Winnie the Pooh."

"Bottle?"

"The blue and white one when he's happy, the green one when he's crying, and the yellow one when he's sleeping – and I still don't understand why you did that, but who am I to judge?"

"When do you need to give him to Amelie?"

"Exactly twenty-four hours before we leave. Claire, I know everything, you've only told me a million times now, I think I caught on during one of those times. Go on, have fun, and I'll see you in a month."

"One month," I sighed. "That's a long while."

"I know, but just look forward to our amazing reunion when we return and kick the guys out so that we can have our own 'girly night'."

I laughed at the glint in her eyes, "I will look forward to it."

"Good," she wiped her eye before a tear fell, "Enjoy."

"You too."

We left it at that as I got in the car and waved her goodbye until all that I could see of them were small dots.

I turned to Shane in the back seat. "Okay, so where are we going?"


	40. Final Author's Note

**Final Author's Note**

Hiya guys!

So, the story is finished:( but I hope you all enjoyed it.

If any of you wanted to know where they went on their honeymoon, Shane took Claire to where she lived before going to Morganville - renting out the room that used to be hers (how sweet) - and then they took a boat ride to Italy. Eve and Michael obviously went to Paris a week and a half later.

Really, that's all that I wanted to say about the story, and now I have some thanks.

To my first ever reviewer, Amyvampire1, for encouraging me to continue with my story. I am very grateful for your continued support.

To my one hundredth reviewer, clairebear97, thank you also for supporting me throughout the story. You have been the first to review each chapter as they come nearer to the end of the story and I thank you very much for that.

To the reviewers of my first chapter altogether:

Amyvampire1

JustSassy

Pheonixfeather201

TheWolf32

And altogether, thanks to:

Amyvampire1

TheWolf32

clairebear97

JustSassy

Pheonixfeather201

erintheunicorn

Megan

Matt

Honestly, you guys are amazing, and I thank you all for reading and reviewing!

Also thanks to:

Amyvampire1

Cassiopeia Weasley

Pheonixfeather201

TheWolf32

clairebear97

erintheunicorn

Roxy Knight 13

Vampgurl03

For favouriting my story

And:

Amyvampire1

Cassiopeia Weasley

Pheonixfeather201

TheWolf32

clairebear97

erintheunicorn

For following my story

**Disclaimer: **All characters in the story belong to Rachel Caine - the brilliant author of Morganville Vampires - it is just the story line that does not.

Okay, so for my next stories I am thinking of Divergent and Mortal Instruments. If any of you have read either series of books, keep a look out for a story in either category from SecretSymphony301;)

Thanks to you all. I have loved writing this story and loved reading all the reviews that you gave me, and I hope you all enjoyed reading.

To my viewers, reviewers, favouriters, etc... You are amazing, I love you all XxxxX


End file.
